Muli's Commune

Where are the flats?

2007-12-13T21:30:00.000+07:00

Vice President Jusuf Kalla wonders why Indonesian real estate companies are so slow in building low-income flats. FYI, last year the VP declared a national programme to build 1,000 low-income residential highrises in 10 big cities by 2009 (yeah, right..).

The Indonesian Real Estate Association answered as such: (local) governments are not providing land, and this makes it practically impossible for the private sector to supply flats in cities for the low income. Ciputra, the real estate mogul, said that any land priced over Rp 3 million (~USD 300) per square meter is not feasible to be procured by the private sector to be sold as low income flats. Furthermore, "even if the local government wants to provide land, there are many regulations that discourage it," someone from DPR said.

I guess we won't be seeing 1,000 low-income flats in the near future..

Privatizing what's not yours

2007-12-13T21:27:00.000+07:00

I generally don't care much about Malaysia's recent claims over cultural products (i.e. batik, angklung, the song 'Rasa Sayange') native to peoples who now live in Indonesian territories. That is, as long as such products are left in the public domain.

However, this time some Malaysian academics have gone too far. As Kompas reported, they are now roaming over Indonesian villages, 'hunting' for classic Malay manuscripts, and place them on a site which people have to pay to use.

Really, I don't care if they claim it as part of their culture. But putting proprietary rights to something that they did not invent? Please...

Community Radio Social Impact Assessment

2007-12-11T19:12:00.000+07:00

AMARC has recently finished its global assessment of the social impacts of community radios. The conclusion is clear: The main social Impact of Community Radio is Voice for the poor and marginalized. In further detail, community radios are effective in supporting poverty reduction, ensuring proper governance, ensuring inclusion of the marginalized, and are effective in conflict resolution and disaster prevention and relief.

The single principal barrier to CR social impact is absence of a friendly legislation; the existence of media oppression and military threats are a generalized barrier to the development of community radio.

Case studies from Indonesia are included in this report, as contributed by Ade Tanesia from Combine under the heading Women as Producers of Information. Nice work!

Third Global Knowledge Conference

2007-12-11T18:58:00.000+07:00

The 3rd Global Knowledge Conference (GK3) – one of the most important knowledge sharing and creative development conferences in the world – will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 11 -13 December 2007. Themed "Emerging People, Emerging Markets, Emerging Technologies," GK3 promises to be a dynamic event focused on the future. GK3 will explore concrete solutions and possibilities within the inter-play, interface and interweaving of issues related to the Knowledge for Development (K4D) and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) in the context of our globally evolving societies, economies and technologies worldwide.

For AMARC, network activities in Kuala Lumpur will focus on how women can use knowledge sharing in their community radio programming activities to empower other women so they can play a stronger role in good governance and democracy. This is one of AMARC’s most important theme areas for development in 2007.

Pro-poor planning and budgeting

2007-12-06T19:47:00.000+07:00

A new buzzword is floating around in the development world. Pro-poor planning and budgeting. What is it?

On the one hand it's an ADB-Bappenas technical assistance project that will "contribute to improvement of access of the poor to quality social services and infrastructure." But more than that, pro-poor planning & budgeting seems like an operational answer to questions like "how can we make sure that the government is taking MDGs seriously?" Especially given that planning documents are usually very general/thematic with no specifically measurable targets and not linked to budgeting process, etc. etc.

So what makes a plan and budget "pro-poor"? The project team said there are four indicators:

it answers the root causes of poverty
it will have impact on improvement of poor people's lives (as stated in MDGs or government mid-term development plans)
its targets are majority poor
the poor are included in the planning & budgeting process

Hopefully this will not be merely hype.

More on rural-urban migration

2007-12-06T19:24:00.000+07:00

I still can't get enough of supporting people to move to cities. It's good that Kompas has got another FOKUS on this topic, under the heading "Fencing Jakarta from the Poor." Of course, this is quite a late post, and the features are still related to post Idul-Fitri movement of people into (back) into big cities.

Let me just take this opportunity to highlight other articles I've recently found. The first is something from the Guardian, UK, that says "migrants are a boon to UK economy."

Migrants are more skilled and often more reliable and hardworking than British workers, and are fuelling the country's economic growth to the tune of £6bn a year...

To put things into perspective is this excerpt on urbanization and migration, taken from the Address given at Commonwealth Youth Forum Opening ceremony by Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Migration to urban areas takes place not because of real opportunities for better wages and livelihood but due to the expectations of such opportunities... In other words, people move or migrate not because they will be better off, but because they expect to be better off.

Unchecked flows of rural poor seeking better lives have exerted an unbearable strain on Africa's capitals...

But then we know that migration has historically improved the well-being of individuals and humanity as a whole. Just think how many countries and cities around the world were founded by migrants. Or today, how many economies are driven by the energy and initiative of new-comers. Let us not forget that what we call the “New World”, namely the Americas and Australasia was populated by immigrants from Europe.

Let us not forget that without migrants, Jakarta would not be Jakarta as it is.

Piracy good for fashion industry

2007-11-12T16:37:00.000+07:00

Open source software proponents have long argued that "relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions" is good for the development of the software industry in general. Ideas get shared and exchanged quickly, and as a result we (consumers) get more frequent improvements in existing softwares as well as new software innovations in whole. Of course, on the other hand proprietary software proponents have claimed this all to be "piracy" and that it harms the software industry.

James Surowiecki recently pointed out that piracy is actually good for the fashion industry.

"There’s little evidence that knockoffs (cheap fakes - muli) are damaging the business. Fashion sales have remained more than healthy... and the high-end firms that so often see their designs copied have become stronger. More striking, a recent paper by the law professors Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman suggests that weak intellectual-property rules, far from hurting the fashion industry, have instead been integral to its success. The professors call this effect “the piracy paradox.”
...
Copying enables designs and styles to move quickly from early adopters to the masses. And since no one cool wants to keep wearing something after everybody else is wearing it, the copying of designs helps fuel the incessant demand for something new.

The situation is not necessarily easy on designers, who have to keep coming up with new ideas rather than being able to milk a trend for years. But it means that in the industry as a whole there is more innovation, more competition, and probably more sales than there otherwise would be."

Is anti-urban-migration growing?

2007-10-25T14:01:00.000+07:00

Jakarta's hate for new incoming migrants from rural areas seems to be spreading.

Now the government of Cilegon, an industrial city in Banten, expects new migrants to provide cash collateral to the municipality. Meanwhile, in Serang, people who don't have local ID cards are facing a fine of Rp 50 million (~USD 5,000) or six months of jail.

Can't the national government (i.e. the ministry of law and human rights) do something about this?

From wheat to web

2007-10-25T10:54:00.000+07:00

Nature News has a good profile on M.S. Swaminathan and portrays a balanced view of the current state of India's "ICT for rural development" initiatives.

Still, what we have are anecdotes. After more than a decade of ICT for development initiatives, shouldn't we have hard data already?

Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head of the Telecom and Networks Group (TeNeT) at the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, [...] says that the dozens of ICT projects across the country are a series of ongoing experiments, “some of which have worked”, he says, but “most of which haven't”.
“You'll hear about a village where ICTs have helped farmers get a better price for grain, or a village where someone has got better access to health care, but these are all anecdotal cases and don't represent the majority of ICT projects,” says Jhunjhunwala.

Papua Governor: environment hero

2007-10-23T17:16:00.000+07:00

In this recent post, I applauded Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu for his commitment to preserve Papua's forests through carbon credit.

Now Mr. Suebu has been named by TIME as one of the 43 Heroes of the Environment 2007. Other heroes include Mikhail Gorbachev, Al Gore, Prince Charles (huh?), and the Toyota Design Team. Guardian's Climate Change has a quick and short recap of this year's heroes, who come from 4 categories:

Leaders and visionaries,
Activists,
Scientists and innovators,
Moguls and entrepreneurs.

However, as Climate Change pointed out: there are only 7 females among the 43 names.

Would you prefer rice or cement?

2007-10-22T18:36:00.000+07:00

Another rice producing region will be gone soon. This time we're talking about Kecamatan Bayah, Kabupaten Lebak, Banten - an area dubbed "rice deposit" by Kompas. Next year, Bayah may be replaced by a complex of Boral cement factories.

It's interesting that the most urbanized and urbanizing area in Indonesia is Java - which is also the most fertile and productive area for rice-growing. My colleague and I once tried to find data on how much productive rice fields (sawah, not just any agriculture areas) in Java have been converted into urban areas. We didn't succeed.

On the one hand, it's ironic that we have all this fuss about the pros and cons of rice import, but we're quite calm about another productive rice field being converted into urban/industrial functions. When it comes to this, it seems that we only care about the amount of money being paid to farmers/landowners to purchase the land, not about the loss of fertile land. [My personal take is that landowners shouldn't be paid 100% in cash - but some of the payment should be in the form of stocks or bonds.]

On the other hand, should we let this happen - considering/assuming that cement has more value than rice?

Update:
Bayah seems to be growing economically. Kompas reports the increase in gold shops, electronic stores, franchise minimarkets, and hotels over the past few years. They wonder whether these may be related to Bayah's readiness to welcome PT. Boral Indonesia, the envisaged economic locomotive of South Banten.

Stop stopping them from coming to Jakarta!

2007-10-22T17:46:00.000+07:00

Every year after the Idul Fitri holidays, the Jakarta government conducts Operasi Yustisi. That's the hunt down of "illegal" migrants coming into Jakarta from Indonesia's rural areas. This year is no different. The sad legacy, unfortunately, is kept by Jakarta's new Governor, Fauzi Bowo.

Mr. Bowo cites Jakarta Bylaw no. 4/2004 as the legal basis of this ironically named operation. He said, "Jakarta is dense enough already. Those who don't have a job and place to live will only burden the city." Illegal migrants (those who are caught without Jakarta ID card) will be fined Rp 5 million (~USD 500) or jailed for 3 months.

Of course, the policy is useless, as Supriatna argues. The poor (which is the reason they came to Jakarta in the first place) don't have that kind of money. And if they are "returned" to their original village, they are sure to come back as there is very few economic opportunity in rural areas. As bad the condition they face in the city, it is almost always much better than if they stayed back. That's called hope. And surely the hope is quite high, at least as high as the demand for low-skilled labor in big cities.

So it makes all sense to let the rural poor come into cities. So why oppose? Is it because we get sore eyes from seeing poor people in the streets? Is it because we don't want Jakarta to be more crowded and messy? Let's not forget: Most of us in Jakarta (at least our parents/ancestors) were once migrants, maybe as poor and as "kampungan" as the villagers are now. Who are we to now deny other people the opportunity that we've received in the past?

PS: This is what I wrote about this issue last year. Do I have to do this every year? Bring it on!

Pedestrians as Anarchy

2007-10-11T10:41:00.000+07:00

My friend and I talked at length the other day on anarchy. Initially were talking about squatters, and then he said, "You can't do whatever you want. That's chaos, that's anarchy!" Putting the discussion on squatting aside, I said anarchy does not necessarily mean chaos.

In case you haven't noticed, there is a lot of (created?) misunderstanding of big words here, just like communism is misunderstood as atheism. After arguing what anarchy really means (see some links on the right), I realized that I should have just quoted what James Surowiecki wrote about William Whyte in The Wisdom of Crowds. That should be easier. An example of simple anarchy in action, no chaos included.

No one has ever paid more attention to the streets and sidewalks of New York City than William H. Whyte... Whyte's work, which was eventually published in his book City, was full of fascinating ideas about architecture, urban design, and the importance to a city of keeping street life vibrant. It was also a paean to the urban pedestrian.

"The pedestrian is a social being," White wrote. "He is also a transportation unit, and a marvelously complex and efficient one." Pedestrians, Whyte showed, were able, even on crowded sidewalks, to move surprisingly fast without colliding with their neighbors. In fact, they were often at best when the crowds were at their biggest...

New Yorkers mastered arts like "the simple pass," which involved slowing ever so slightly in order to avoid a collision with an oncoming pedestrian. They platooned at crosswalks as a protection against traffic. In general, Whyte wrote, "They walk fast and they walk adroitly. They give and they take, at once aggressive and accommodating. With the subtlest of motions they signal their intentions to one another." The result was that "At eye level, the scene comes alive with movement and color - people walking quickly, walking slowly, skipping up steps, weaving in and out in crossing patterns, accelerating and retarding to match the moves of others. There is a beauty that is beguiling to watch."

What Whyte saw - and made us see - was the beauty of a well-coordinated crowd...

Anarchy is simple the absence of a ruler. And as the streets of New York shows, the absence of a ruler does not have to mean chaos. People - in many cases - can coordinate themselves beautifully.

PS: The picture above, is actually not of New York's pedestrians, but of Tokyo's. It's from UNFPA site.

The upper and lower ends of migrant working

2007-10-06T23:40:00.000+07:00

Several articles on migrant working caught my eyes recently. Two op-eds in Kompas discussed the upper end of the issue: one in positive tone, arguing that professional and business migrants create international networks needed by the home country, the other in negative tone, arguing that 'brain drain' increases the gap between advanced and backward countries.

Interesting that Kompas presents both sides of the debate in relatively equal manner. Maybe the daily has yet to decide its own stand? Certainly migration is a sensitive topic. And the idea to let workers roam free across national borders is 'equally offensive to the left and the right' (as DeParle argues in Should We Globalize Labor Too?)

The latter statement was taken from the context of international development debate from the eyes of Lant Pritchett. He was talking about the lower end of migrant working, taking poor villagers in Nepal, like Gure Sarki, as case study:

Pritchett, a development economist and practiced iconoclast, has just left the World Bank to teach at Harvard and to help Google plan its philanthropic efforts on global poverty. In a recent trip through Chaurmuni [in Nepal], he praised the goats as community-driven development at its best: a fast, flexible way of delivering tangible aid to the poor. “But Nepal isn’t going to goat its way out of poverty,” he said. Nor does he think that as a small, landlocked country Nepal can soon prosper through trade.

To those standard solutions, trade and aid, Pritchett would add a third: a big upset-the-applecart idea, equally offensive to the left and the right. He wants a giant guest-worker program that would put millions of the world’s poorest people to work in its richest economies. Never mind the goats; if you really want to help Gure Sarki, he says, let him cut your lawn. Pritchett’s nearly religious passion is reflected in the title of his migration manifesto: “Let Their People Come.” It was published last year to little acclaim — none at all, in fact — but that is Pritchett’s point. In a world in which rock stars fight for debt relief and students shun sweatshop apparel, he is vexed to find no placards raised for the cause of labor migration. If goods and money can travel, why can’t workers follow? What’s so special about borders?

Yes, unfortunately the idea is still not popular. So how can I help, Lant?

PS: here are other articles by DeParle on border crossing: Jobs Abroad Support ‘Model’ State in India (Kerala), and A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves (Philippines).

Jakarta's blunt declaration against the poor

2007-10-06T22:56:00.000+07:00

A new Jakarta bylaw on 'public order' will fine you up to Rp 20 million (~$ 2,000) if you give to beggars, street vendors, street performers, etc. Also, motorcycle taxis and bajajs are illegal, and bicycles and transvestites are put at a disadvantage. The reason for the Perda no.8/2007 is to 'safeguard Jakarta's image as the nation's capital'.

What crap.

The Poor People's Alliance has produced an article-by-article critique on the bylaw. UPC has issued a press release to reject it.

Fortunately, the Ministry of Home Affairs has agreed to review the bylaw, to check whether it violates public interest and any other law above it. And so has the Ministry of Law and Human Rights. We'll see what happens.

Picture from supermilan.wordpress.com

On Ecology and Economy

2007-10-01T11:03:00.000+07:00

Feeling a bit hot lately? Well, blame it (correctly) on global warming. For me, the best thing about the global warming concept is that we're finally accepting how interconnected the world really is. You can't stop global warming only by, i.e. reducing greenhouse gases in one place. You gotta do it everywhere!

Photo source: Environmental Investigation Agency, "The Last Frontier: Illegal Logging in Papua and China's Massive Timber Theft. Quoted in EarthHopeNetwork.net.

Economically unfortunate for developing countries, all this concern about global warming has only surfaced nowadays, just when they're on a roll of development/ industrialization. How could developing countries ever compete/catch-up with their developed counterparts if all this development has to be curbed now? How is it fair that developed countries could go so far ahead inter-alia through colonialism, slavery, environmental destruction (all these were 'acceptable' at the time) and now they ask third world nations to compete with them without all those evils shortcuts?

And how did the governments of Aceh, Papua, and West Papua (all forest-rich provinces in Indonesia), react to the call to protect their forests and possibly forego 'development' (read: profits from palm oil plantations)? Economically, of course! And rightly so. Learning from Costa Rica, Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu plans to preserve its forests with "carbon credits" (WSJ, subscription required):

His proposal: Have papua become an active player in the word's emerging carbon markets - a system of exchanges that let investors and companies buy and sell the right to pollute.
Mr. Suebu's plans for Papua are on a large scale. He has proposed to reserve more than half of the land targeted for development for protection. In the meantime, he has applied heavy brakes to the (palm oil) plantation companies' expansion aims, so far refusing to grant them permission to proceed with their planned developments.

"In my mind, we have to save the forests of Papua and make money from that," said Mr. Suebu, 61 years old. "I know that Indonesia doesn't care about the forest."

So suppose ecology and economy are no longer a dichotomy, and that the money actually does come in: is the problem solved? Marianne Klute of Watch Indonesia poses a good question: Who should benefit from the money?

Should it be the plantation companies, which need to forgo palm oil profits? Should it be the government budget which, under Indonesian law, owns the forest? Or the special autonomous provinces? Or should the money go to the indigenous peoples so that they can continue to live in harmony with nature and, through their way of living, sustain the forest?

On the privatization of education

2007-08-02T18:38:00.000+07:00

The Indonesian Government has been drafting a new law on a new legal format for state-owned universities (RUU BHP - Rencana Undang-Undang Badan Hukum Pendidikan). The new law will significantly decrease state funding for these universities, potentially driving fees upwards to be more private-like.

A group of people recently held an event to protest the draft.

I couldn't agree with them more. Education should be the last thing to be handed over completely to the private sector. Don't see it simply as public service; education should be a country/nation's most important investment. Even in the most capitalist nations education is subsidized. Even Robert Kiyosaki, the uber-capitalist "rich dad", demands that the government provide financial education/literacy to America's school children.

We've got priorities all mixed up.

(Indonesian) TV Turnoff Day: Sunday 22 July

2007-07-12T21:33:00.000+07:00

I just found out about this from my friend Ambar. Apparently we also have a TV turnoff time in Indonesia. And it's been going on at least since 2006.

Okay, so the turnoff time is not exactly a week like that promoted by Adbusters, but a day is good enough for starters. And while the message is not exactly anti corporate capitalism /consumerism, ensuring quality time (and building media awareness) for the family - especially children - is a very good cause indeed.

Indonesia's Gerakan Hari Tanpa TV (Day Without TV Movement) will be held on Sunday 22 July 2007, just one day before the National Children's Day (23 Juli 2007). Organizers are
Yayasan Pengembangan Media Anak (YPMA - Foundation for Development of Children's Media), Yayasan Kita dan Buah Hati (YKBH), and others.

Here's the webpage containing background information, contact details, and how you can participate.

ShareIdeas.org: Mobile Knowledge for Social Change

2007-07-12T21:21:00.000+07:00

Cellphones are changing the world in more ways than one. ICT for Development initiatives are now increasingly highlighting the use of cellular, wireless technology rather than standard personal computers (i.e. 'telecenters'). But then again, with technological convergence going on at fast pace, who could tell the difference between a cellular phone and a personal computer anymore? As a cellphone ad says: "[cellphones] are what computers have become."

So if computers with internet connection could play a role in addressing development issues, then cellphones with GPRS/3G/4G connection should potentially play bigger roles. Cellphones are predominantly personal, so instead of fostering 'community development' (which is prone to elite capture), they do a great job in fostering something more essential: 'individual/personal development.' They're cheap(er than computers), handy, easy to use, and very contextual to the user. The rate of cellphone ownership is increasing at an exponential rate in many developing countries. In Indonesia, the number of cellphone subscribers have reached 30% of the population, and 90% of the population are covered by cellphone coverage/signal.

ShareIdeas.org is an online community and a wiki for sharing ideas on how to use mobile communications for social and environmental benefits. Here you can learn (and contribute) stories of how to use the cellphone for:

civic engagement (i.e. monitoring a presidential election and reporting child rights violations)
economic empowerment (i.e. mobile-banking and rural microfinance)
education (i.e. using mobile games to build HIV/AIDS awareness)
environment (i.e. mobilizing volunteers to respond to disasters)
health (i.e. collecting vital health data), and
humanitarian relief (i.e. sending donations through text message)

The idea for ShareIdeas.org came from Ndidi Nwuneli, founder and CEO of LEAP Africa, a Nigerian NGO dedicated to nurturing a new generation of African leaders.

"Groups like ours would really benefit from a resource that shows us how to use mobile technology to carry out our work more effectively," said Ndidi at a Nokia stakeholder event of NGO and corporate leaders.

ShareIdeas.org was created in response to Ndidi’s request, with support from Nokia and Vodafone. And since a large part of its intention is to help groups like Ndidi's, ShareIdeas.org also has information and practical examples for NGOs on “how to” use mobile technology in their daily work, including
* Collect field data
* Distribute information
* Manage finances
* Manage your organization
* Respond to emergencies
* Track people/products

Check it out.

Busway, oh busway

2007-06-12T10:22:00.001+07:00

With this level of service quality, how can we expect the middle class to start using public transportation? This photo was taken at the Polda Metro pedestrian bridge, some time last month.

Environment degradation in Merapi

2007-05-30T15:08:00.000+07:00

One year after the slow and painful eruption of Mount Merapi in Central Java, surrounding communities must continue to face danger. This time, the danger is not high-profile and does not attract media interest. However, it is no less severe in the long run.

While Merapi eruption is commonly seen as disaster by city folks, it is actually seen in a more balanced light by villagers. For one, an eruption leaves fertile soil which will is really good for the surrounding farmers later. And the business people love the top quality sand that eruptions leave, especially along rivers.

So sand mining is now hot. Jalin Merapi reports: nowadays, on a given day, loads of trucks and day laborers work to mine and transport sand. However, as day laborers may get a good deal of Rp. 50,000 ($5) per day, and the mining companies make a huge profit, the local residents are suffering.

Let's listen to the Selo people in Cepogo, Boyolali, Central Java. Where they live has now become prone to land-slides. Agricultural activities disturbed. Sources of fresh water in jeopardy.

What is to be done?

Modern woman vs outdated mentality

2007-05-25T09:39:00.000+07:00

Let's talk about art for a change.

The EKI Dance Company is now performing their latest musical, Miss Kadaluwarsa, in Jakarta. I went to their show last night, and loved it very much. First off, the stage performance was awesome. A big salute to the cast and dancers, the musicians, and the lighting, sound and stage technicians. And of course, to the people behind the stage who made this all happen.

What's no less interesting is that this musical brings up an issue faced by probably many women in culturally transitioning countries like Indonesia: how should a single, successful career woman view the notion of marriage, and the role of a man/husband in her life? Miss Kadaluwarsa [kadaluwarsa means expired] points out, in a hilariously entertaining way, that a "modern" woman could still be trapped in an "outdated" mentality that keeps her unhappy and tied to unnecessary binds.

Miss Kadaluwarsa is playing in Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, May 23-27.
Here's the info on schedule, prices, and ticket boxes.

Update: Here are some photos from the show:

"The future is female"

2007-05-21T13:26:00.000+07:00

British Telecom's futurologist predicts that the future will be about "the care economy." After the industrial age and the information age, the world economy will capitalize on what can not be automated or outsourced that easily: care. And who are "best suited" for this shift? Right. Women.

Machines will be able to displace people from many of today's information economy jobs, just as they already have in agriculture and manufacturing, Mr Pearson predicts... "More recently intellectual jobs have been done by software."

Consultants, male or female, are easier to automate than nurses. A consultant is tantamount to "an expert system linked to a complicated brain", he says. But nurses' skills are all about being human, by listening and making patients feel better.

"Softer interpersonal skills that cannot be replaced by a system will be better valued than the more rigid skills," speculates Cheryl Clemons, a programme manager for Broadband East Sussex.

A big question remains:

So if women have an easier time because their skills are more valued, does it mean they will also benefit financially? Not necessarily, Mr Pearson warns.

I am thus reminded of school teachers. In the 'olden days,' school teachers were mostly men, and they are highly respected and the pay is not bad. Then one day, teaching jobs were shifted to women, and gradually salary level & social perception of teachers become less and less interesting.

So I'd imagine the response from women is: "so what?"
Any thoughts?

On happiness as public policy

2007-05-09T22:50:00.000+07:00

I knew happiness is hot. But I didn't know that it's now on some countries' policy agenda (economists, here's a new challenge for you... or is this not related to economics?). Newsweek gives a report:

Happiness is everywhere—on the best-seller lists, in the minds of policymakers, and front and center for economists—yet it remains elusive. The golden rule of economics has always been that well-being is a simple function of income. That's why nations and people alike strive for higher incomes—money gives us choice and a measure of freedom. But a growing body of studies show that wealth alone isn't necessarily what makes us happy. After a certain income cap, we simply don't get any happier.

Now policymakers are racing to figure out what makes people happy, and just how they should deliver it. Countries as diverse as Bhutan, Australia, China, Thailand and the U.K. are coming up with "happiness indexes," to be used alongside GDP as a guide to society's progress. In Britain ... the "politics of happiness" will likely figure prominently in next year's elections.

But really, can happiness be measured/figured out scientifically? The New York Times recently wrote a long piece on what is happy (Happiness 101). Whole classes on some elite universities are being conducted on happiness, or to train people to be happy(er). One class gave a "distinction between feeling good, which according to positive psychologists only creates a hunger for more pleasure — they call this syndrome the hedonic treadmill — and doing good, which can lead to lasting happiness."

Personally, I like how happiness is portrayed in the recent Will Smith movie The Pursuit of Happyness. I love how Smith pointed out how Jefferson put in life and liberty as basic rights of U.S. citizens, but not happiness in itself. You don't have a right to be happy, but you have a right to pursue it. Maybe because Jefferson knew from then on that happiness means differently for different people.

And I also like how policy makers are getting wiser by considering happiness, as opposed to simply wealth, as a nation's goal.

technorati tags: happiness

Do we need a moratorium of private vehicles?

2007-05-04T14:54:00.000+07:00

Last month, Indonesia's Minister of Environment, Rachmat Witoelar, suggested a moratorium (temporary suspension) of new private vehicles in some cities. Mr. Witoelar said this in anticipation of the results of air quality evaluation currently being conducted in seven cities. Here's an English version of the news. Expectedly, GAIKINDO, the Indonesian Association of Automotive Industries, rejected the idea - as mentioned in Metro TV this morning. They blame the lack of infrastructure (roads) that is causing all the traffic congestion, thus producing air pollution.

My take on this:

Forget about adding more roads! This NEVER solves the traffic congestion problem because as more roads are built, people will buy more vehicles. It's only a cosmetic solution to a systemic problem.
At first, I thought the moratorium idea is quite extreme. Originally I wanted to suggest that Mr. Witoelar drop his "command and control" paradigm and go for the "incentives" approach instead. This means improving public transportation so that in the end people would have a better choice and leave their private vehicles at home.
However, after second thoughts - especially considering the lousy implementation of an otherwise great public transportation idea (Yes, I'm talking about the TransJakarta Busway System, or as my sister puts it: "There's the way... where's the bus?") - I think I can understand why Mr. Witoelar suggested the moratorium.
So in the end: NO to GAIKINDO's idea, NO COMMENT to Mr. Witoelar's idea.

In-line with all this, The Jakarta Post just featured an interview with Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, and the architect of the "busway" system - or Transmilenio as they call it in Bogota. He has a good explanation on why adding roads is never the answer, although congestion is up to the neck! He also criticized the TransJakarta Busway (in a nice diplomatic way, of course).

Here's a nice quote from Mr. Penalosa:

Solving traffic jams is not a priority. In London, Paris and New York, there are also traffic jams and nobody says that they have to build more roads. The citizens are well aware that if they don't want to be caught in traffic, they will use public transportation. It gives them faster mobility.

So just let all the people suffer in the traffic jams until they leave their cars at home and use public transportation. City administrations should focus on improving the quality of their public transportation instead of investing in new roads. If you have a democracy, roads should be allocated first for public transportation.

TV Turnoff Week: April 23-29

2007-04-18T14:35:00.000+07:00

It's that time of the year again. OK, so maybe we would dare turn off our TV. But what about our DVD player, video iPod, XBOX 360, laptop, or PSP? All for seven days of unplugged life?

Adbusters says:

But there’s a lot more to TV Turnoff Week than shaking up your relationship with passive entertainment. It’s all about saying no to being bombarded with unwelcome and unhealthy commercial messages. It's about saying no to unfettered corporate media concentration and to the democratic deficit that results. And it's about challenging the heavily distorted reflection of the world that we see on the screen, a reflection that is keeping us ill-informed and unaware of the very real political and environmental crises that we all currently face.

The decision is up to you. But please do reflect on the topic.

technorati tags: TV-turnoff-week

Traditional market vs. modern market

2007-04-17T10:24:00.000+07:00

Another mall, another conflict. The Indonesian Association of Traditional Market Traders (APPSI) is protesting the plan to develop a new Koja Trade Mall (a "modern" market) in North Jakarta, right next to a still thriving Koja "traditional" market (Pasar Koja).

Sumardiyanto, the association's head, said that Pasar Koja currently acommodates some 2,000 traders, the biggest number of traders compared to other 15 traditional markets in Jakarta. The daily turnover is Rp 600,000 ($66) a day a trader, totalling to Rp 1.2 billion a day. Quite significant.

Jakarta Regulation No. 2/2002 specified that modern markets as large as 2,000 to 4,000 sqm has to locate at least 2 km away from traditional markets. Modern markets larger than 4,000 sqm at least 2.5 km away. Koja Trade Mall will be as large as 28,000 sqm.

Apparently the school community in the area is also opposed to the mall. Meanwhile, President SBY some time ago asked that traditional markets not be let to free competition with the burgeoning "hypermarkets".

I feel what the traditional market traders are fighting for. For me the problem is not about "traditional" or "modern", but about the number of economic actors involved in each side of the tension. Traditional markets, clearly, employ more people and acommodate more & more diverse shareholders than modern markets.

But really, is protection the more appropriate and longer term solution to this? I believe capacity building and some kind of subsidy (not simply in the form of physical improvement of the market) are better answers. For example,

Perhaps somone should build the capacity of traditional traders to apply better, more modern management so that traditional markets are not synonym to dirty, smelly places?
Or perhaps somone should facilitate some kind of capital & business consolidation among the traditional traders to increase their pecuniary advantage against the likes of Carrefour, so that traditional markets are equally able to buy at large scale and sell at lower prices?

technorati tags: market, hypermarket, mall, Jakarta

Flood cause in the making

2007-04-17T10:21:00.000+07:00

Here you have it: another cause of future Jakarta floods, in the making. Bekasi (a municipality to the south east of Jakarta) citizens are rallying against Bekasi Square: a new, 4-hectare mall development in their city that has been reluctant to build a proper drainage towards the Bekasi river. Because of this, Pekayon, the area where the mall is situated, was almost flooded due to heavy rain last week.

The developer said that they have planned this drainage, but could not build it soon because they need to get Government approval since the drainage will cross a major road. Hmm.. Shouldn't this be settled before the mall was built?

Often time, we encounter a problem that will lead into a bigger problem in the future, but we just keep quiet or act ignorant. Then suddenly the big disaster happens, and we become all very talkative, all too late.

technorati tags: Jakarta, flood, cities, urban-planning

Internet price to go down by 30%

2007-04-17T10:12:00.000+07:00

I just found this article on the Indonesian ISP Association (APJII) website. Apparently open competition in the telecommunications industry is finally going to take place.

Based on the new Ministry of ICT's Regulation No. 3/2007, the price paid by ISPs to network operators like Telkom, Indosat, and Excelcomindo for leased lines will likely go down by 50%. As this infrastructure rent represents 50% of an ISP's operational costs, then ISPs will likely decrease internet service price by 30%.

A good thing for the development of an Indonesian information society. A true information society is a society in which a large part of the added value is created from information & knowledge (content), not rent.

FYI: I don't have the latest figures, but in 2003, the total cost of 20 hours of dial-up Internet access per month was about US$ 22/month, which corresponds to 38% of Indonesia's GNI per capita. While in high income countries, internet costs are comparable to an average of 1.7% of GNI per capita.

technorati tags: Internet, Indonesia

Murray and Homelessness

2007-04-11T15:47:00.000+07:00

UCLA tonight is featuring a lecture by Malcolm Gladwell, author of that really cool book The Tipping Point. Gladwell will talk about a specific issue that he wrote about a year ago in the New Yorker: "Million-Dollar Murray: Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage."

The basic lesson behind "Murray" is similar to that behind "the law of the few" in The Tipping Point: pay attention to the few people who really make a difference. Why?

In the nineteen-eighties, when homelessness first surfaced as a national issue, the assumption was that the problem fit a normal distribution: that the vast majority of the homeless were in the same state of semi-permanent distress. It was an assumption that bred despair: if there were so many homeless, with so many problems, what could be done to help them?

Then, Dennis Culhane discovered something that "profoundly changed the way homelessness is understood":

Homelessness doesn't have a normal distribution, it turned out. It has a power-law distribution. "We found that eighty per cent of the homeless were in and out really quickly," he said. "In Philadelphia, the most common length of time that someone is homeless is one day. And the second most common length is two days. And they never come back... The next ten per cent were what Culhane calls episodic users. They would come for three weeks at a time, and return periodically, particularly in the winter... It was the last ten per cent—the group at the farthest edge of the curve—that interested Culhane the most. They were the chronically homeless, who lived in the shelters, sometimes for years at a time. They were older. Many were mentally ill or physically disabled, and when we think about homelessness as a social problem—the people sleeping on the sidewalk, aggressively panhandling, lying drunk in doorways, huddled on subway grates and under bridges—it's this group that we have in mind.

This last ten per cent includes Murray Barr, a chronic homeless from Reno, Nevada, who - although a nice person - had severe drinking problem that that costed the state one million dollars in "all his hospital bills for the ten years that he had been on the streets—as well as substance-abuse-treatment costs, doctors' fees, and other expenses..."

Gladwell suggested that we (meaning Americans) should just solve the homelessness problem, rather than keep trying to manage it.

because when a problem is that concentrated you can wrap your arms around it and think about solving it.

A small portion of society is bound to need help/support from others, anyway. If we could just identify who they are, and not just lump them all together in our self-made categories, we may actually be able to solve the most important part of the problem (if not the whole problem).

technorati tags: homelessness

Immigrants and the city

2007-04-09T15:08:00.000+07:00

Planetizen summarizes a Wall Street Journal article titled Save Our Cities (WSJ subscription needed, but I've copied the full text here):

While some cities are attempting to drive immigrants out, others are welcoming them with open arms. As a Wall Street Journal writer asserts, "All booming American cities are immigrant cities."

"The fate of a two-year-old war on illegal immigrants declared by the mayor of tiny Hazleton, Pa., a former coal town, is now in the hands of a federal judge. He will rule by June on Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which penalizes local businesses and landlords who employ or rent to illegal immigrants."

"During the nine-day trial that concluded last Friday, Mayor Lou Barletta argued that some 10,000 undocumented immigrants have ruined Hazleton's quality of life...Yet business owners and landlords argued the opposite -- that immigrants had revitalized Hazleton's moribund economy, filling once-vacant apartments and patronizing once-declining businesses."

"In other cities the verdict is already in: Immigrants have significantly improved the quality of life in many of America's most successful cities. Take Flushing, Queens."
"All booming American cities are immigrant cities. It's practically tautological. Cities that welcome immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- tend to have vital economies that expand exponentially as immigrants open new businesses, fill vacant jobs and move into declining neighborhoods."

Here's my favorite quote, though:

In the 1960s Flushing was a wasteland, those same storefronts boarded up and the sidewalks empty -- so derelict that the area was designated in the city's 1975 federal community development block grant application as eligible for urban renewal money. Then came the Chinese immigrants, first in small numbers, then in great waves, through the 1980s and '90s. Long-time city planning official Sandy Hornick summarizes the 1970s as "back when we were trying to figure out what to do with Flushing before Flushing figured it out for itself."

Apparently, immigration is back to being a hot topic. Maybe because we're approaching the one-year commemoration of the big rallies against Bush's proposed immigration policy. Here's something from The Guardian, a few days ago:

New York would lose around 100,000 residents a year if overseas immigrants were not filling the void, the census bureau figures for 2000 to 2006 show. Los Angeles and Boston would also shrink without immigrants, threatening their economies and property markets.

It's a pity that many Indonesian urban planners still view urban in-migration (i.e., people coming from the villages into the cities) as a liability rather than asset.

PS: "We're all Immigrants" photo from city-data.com

technorati tags: cities, immigrants

Community radios under pressure?

2007-03-17T23:54:00.000+07:00

Despite my latest posts about the virtues of community radio, the government seems to be going the other way around.

Last week, some Jakarta community radios were "ordered off the airwaves"; they were claimed to be interfering with the navigation system in Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta.

Unfortunately, it's not clear whether this interference is true. The frequency used for aviation radio is 118.3 MHz. However, Jawis FM, a school-based community radio that uses the 107.6 FM frequency at a meager 50 watt power was also told to stop its broadcasting activities. So was the Suara Warga Jakarta (Voice of Jakartans) radio, whose power only extends to a mere 2.5 kilometers radius.

So the question is: have the government followed the necessary procedure? Do they actually have proof of which radios are interfering with aviation frequency?

Does this progress have any correlation with the closing down of some 14 radios in Sorong, West Papua, late last year? Here's what I read from a credible source: These radios were said to be "caught red-handed" committing crime and jeopardizing national stability. And the interesting part: the procedure is that before closing down a radio, the government should provide information/guidance, and then a warning letter. However, at that time, the officer only had a general letter from the Ministry of ICT about "reporting the existence" of radios.

What's going on here?

Does the government still consider community broadcasting 'scary'? Adhi Wicaksana thinks that regulations concerning community radio are, at best, still at odds with each other.

Despite all this, do consider a few more great examples of community radio role:

The Jakarta Community Radio, "established in 2003 as a communication tool for local residents", has "the only radio program of its kind in the capital, perhaps the entire country, dedicated to the interests and needs of the disabled community."
The community radio in Wiladeg, Central Java, is giving the people a media to practice democracy and good governance.
The Voice of Muhammadiyah Radio in Aceh provides a service for tsunami-affected communities to trace missing relatives.

technorati tags: community-radio, ICT-for-development

Community radios reach out to West Sumatra earthquake victims

2007-03-14T13:15:00.000+07:00

Yet another earthquake. This time, one with a power of 5.8 Richter scale hit West Sumatra some 2 weeks ago.

Combine's SaksiGempa site (in Indonesian) reports that the community radio association of West Sumatra, working together with 4 member radios, is providing a media center service for victims of the recent earthquake, the government, and aid agencies.

Radios Radila and Semarak, both in Solok, and radios Suandri and Bahana, both in Padang Pariaman, are clarifying information regarding issues of follow-up quakes with the meteorology and geophysics agency. Then they broadcast the results to reduce the panic situation caused mainly by uncertainty.

Said Hendri Ihsan, a local NGO/community radio activist,

Communication in the earthquake-affected area is down. Moreover, the mountainous geographic condition in this area makes it difficult to disseminate information. Radio is the most effective means.

Hendri's contact information is available here.

technorati tags: ICT-for-development, community-radio

Innovations in rural information service

2007-03-14T12:39:00.000+07:00

Kompas (in Indonesian language) has some encouraging articles to start off the week. For one, the cost of narrowing the (urban-rural) digital divide is heading down with the new Base Transceiver Station (BTS) technology called FLASH OFDM (Fast-hopping Low-latency Access with Seamless Handover Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing).

OFDM technology operates at 450 MHz frequency, can accommodate bandwidth of up 5.3 Mbps, can reach a distance of up to 70 kilometers. Much more efficient as we'd need less BTS to connect more areas. Best of all, OFDM can be integrated with GSM networks using a mini, very portable, "nanoGSM" BTS that is of paper size and of 2.7 Kg weight. Imagine that: carrying your own BTS around that can serve both voice and data.

We don't know when this technology (currently developed by Siemens) will be available. Hopefully soon. Still, a major problem in popularizing the internet in Indonesia is the prohibitive cost of bandwidth. So all this hoopla, including the hoopla about 3G, is nonsense if bandwidth quality is still patchy and cost too high.

In another article, the daily profiled an inspiring role of community radio in helping the post-disaster (tsunami) recovery of Pangandaran coastal area, West Java. Founded to respond to the disaster aftermath last year, the radio called Suara Pangandaran Darurat Recovery Ciamis Selatan (Drecs) has been providing post-disaster information that's easily accessible by affected people. They have good contact with the meteorology and geophysics agency, and even sometimes the police and army asks them for some information.

Now the local teachers' association (PGRI) has been collaborating to provide distance education through radio waves. A show called "free talk," where community members and local leaders alike can participate, discusses local development issues, from regularization of informal traders to issues of internally displaced people.

Now, wouldn't it be cool if we can see some kind of collaboration between a technology like OFDM and community radios?

technorati tags: ICT-for-development,, community-radio

True cost economics

2007-03-12T13:13:00.000+07:00

A significant change happening in my thoughts for the past few years is this increase of interest in economics and finance. My dear sister, who happens to be an economist, is damn tired of me asking her all sort of dumb economic questions :) She even wrote a nice post about my new obsession, which - of all things - should be read by Greg Mankiw the economics professor himself! Yikes.

Anyways, I find it amusing that a lot of what matters, we already learned in our early childhood years. I remember how grade school taught me that economics comes from the Greek words "oikos" and "nomos", which means "household" and "science". And when you're running a household, you want your family (meaning everyone in the household) to be wealthy and happy. Thus gaining/creating wealth is as important as making sure that it gets distributed accordingly.

And so I find it interesting how The Economist views globalization (free trade across national borders). In their special report of September 2006, titled The Power of the Emerging World, the magazine pointed out (subscription required) how globalization has increased the total "wealth" created by the whole world: that profit, as percentage of total economic output, is at an all-time high; that globalization has brought better outcome to the world.

But hold on. Who is "the world"? I am reminded of the recent corny Pertamina (Indonesian state-owned oil company) TV ad that says "if you buy Pertamina lubricants, you gain and the nation gains". The question is, "who do you mean by 'the nation'?" It's quite common knowledge that profits of big state-owned companies is kept or even misappropriated by a few people. So does the nation really gain? Theoretically, yes - because Pertamina is a state-owned company. In reality, not if you consider the majority of the people who have very little to gain from it (if at all).

Which brings back to the question of globalization. OK, so globalization has brought more profit at the world scale over time. And if you divide this increasing profit by the number of the population, it seems that the world is getting better off, on average. But that's not how profit is distributed. You don't just give it out evenly to everybody. What's happening now is that although the cake is getting bigger, more and more of it is being eaten by less and less people. The Economist admitted that

workers' share of the cake in rich countries is now the smallest it has been for at least three decades (see chart 5). In many countries average real wages are flat or even falling.…

In other words, we have increasing inequality, and this this can be better seen through the median, or the Gini Coefficient.

It's funny how economists are taught all these quantitative tools, but when it comes to free trade, they seem to only use the average. Thus I am reminded of a quote from my sister's professor: "Ideologies are for people who are too lazy to think."

So far we've just been talking about the paradox behind the internal workings of economics when applied to free trade. What about the impact of free trade on the environment and on communities? What about leisure time, unpaid housework, family breakdown, increase of crime? What about ecological footprints? Are they reflected in the GDP? Economists have often dismissed these as "externalities." But if we're trying to view/study economics in all its completeness and in real world application, these should be seriously factored in.

Alright, I'll stop here. I'm not even an economist. But I am thrilled that Adbusters is co-leading the campaign to demand better economics education, based on a more realistic science. They call it "True Cost Economics":

This is our most urgent campaign: a fight to revolutionize economics before our planet is destroyed. We need a new economic paradigm - one that is open, holistic, and human scale [...] The economic revolution begins with jamming Economics departments. It ends with an entirely new way to measure progress.

Here's another interesting quote:

[E.F. Schumacher] coined the term “Buddhist economics” to describe the opposite of the Western economic model, one that didn’t allow for unlimited growth and consumption and emphasized renewable resources. For those who questioned what Buddhism had to do with economics, Schumacher replied, “Economics without Buddhism, i.e., without spiritual, human and ecological values, is like sex without love.”

Don't get me wrong. I think economics is important, and livelihood (earning money) is a big factor of what makes the world tick. However, isn't it time that economics be freed from economists who are blinded by their own ideology, be it left or right?

technorati tags: economics,, globalization,, true-cost-economics

Coming soon: the $100 (or so) laptop

2007-02-15T18:59:00.000+07:00

So the poor kids' gadget to bridge the digital divide will be available in developing countries this month! Newsweek has a cool interview with Negroponte about it recently, calling it "the people's laptop". OK, so the price is still $150 - but the MIT guru said he'll work it down to $100.

But what's maybe cooler is the (less than) "$100 Un-PC" produced by Chennai-based company Novatium. It looks a lot more familiar to the people - just like a PC, but stripped down to the very basic parts (it only uses cell-phone processors).

The main difference between the two products is the drive behind them: Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child machine "is dependent on the kindness of wealthy partners." Whereas Novatium's Nova NetPC was about making profit, and "making the computer affordable was only part of the equation."

This reminds me of the clash of ideas between William Easterly in "The White Man's Burden" and Jeffrey Sach's "The End of Poverty".

Who will prevail?

Image from: tech.blorge.com

technorati tags: ICT-for-development

Jakarta flood and urbanization failure

2007-02-13T17:20:00.000+07:00

One big reason for the Jakarta flooding is our failure to urbanize properly. As Lefebvre said, everything is now essentially "urban": from the Thamrin-Sudirman corridor, to the mountains of Puncak in West Java, even to the forests of Papua - meaning they are under the power of urban capital interests.

So why shouldn't the old natural flood plains of Jakarta (now places called Pantai Indah Kapuk and Kelapa Gading) fall into urban interests, as every place has? Why - specifically in Jakarta - do such interests manifest in extreme forms: building settlements where there should be none, thus risking their lives and the lives of others? Quite simple: no choice.

People need to live in the city, and they couldn't. I mean, if apartments cost Rp 10 million per square meter (and renting is far from cheap, too), then how many people can afford to live in the city? Naturally, sprawl happens. Destruction of nature is not only due to rich people wanting to have grand villas in Puncak, but also our failure to urbanize Jakarta properly.

But this may about to change. Remember Jusuf Kalla's wild idea (i.e. here and here) to build 20-storey public low income flats (rumah susun) all over big cities in Indonesia? Well, that may soon materialize (although hopefully the Government will not take his words literally!). Last week, the President just approved the exemption of value added tax (PPN) of rumah susun development by developers. The BTN bank apparently is quite excited. They've allocated Rp 1 trillion for financing this. The Director said,

If the Government can provide interest rate subsidy of 3%, then that will bring the interest rate down from currently 14% to 11%.

Hey, 11% is quite close to the 10% that Ciputra wanted. Last year, the big real estate mogul said that if he gets 10% rate, he is "willing to invest whatever it takes to build low-income flats in Jakarta."

Are we about to see a better urbanization of Jakarta?

technorati tags: settlements, cities, urban, Jakarta

On Network

2007-02-08T15:40:00.000+07:00

Interesting that I should read Dewi's post that mentions informal community networks in Jakarta and Bangkok, and not long afterwards I stumble on Kazys Varnelis' "The Rise of Network Culture," through his blog post.

Being a fan of Manuel Castells, I read the latter quite excitedly, and found it to be a good further exploration on the importance of networks. It's quite a heavy and philosophical read (not sure I understood all of it), stating how "network culture" is the next big thing after modernism and postmodernism. I quote my favorite part:

Today, network culture succeeds postmodernism. It does so in a more subtle way. It does not figure itself as an “ism” that would lay claim to the familiar territory of manifestos, symposia, definitive museum exhibits and so on, but rather servers as a more emergent phenomenon.

A question remains in my head: how does this entirely "new cultural condition" link to the lives of the poor? Surely, they have networks too; in fact, many aspects of their livelihoods depend on networks. Would networks mean more to them now, as more people in rural areas have access to cell-phones, than before?

technorati tags: network

Nerdtivist, or is it Actinerd?

2006-12-18T09:45:00.000+07:00

I'm just back from a two-week mission, learning about a new approach to development. While my head is screaming to let some of its content out, I think I'll let it sit for a while as I try to sort out the good parts from the details.

In the meantime, let me share some interesting articles I've recently found. They're all related to ICT for development.

Apparently, there's a gap between traditional activists and the FOSS (free and open source software) community. While the two may "frequently share ethical positions and social interests ranging from freedom of expression and cooperative organization to consumer rights, privacy, and anti-trust legislation, mostly the two groups remain unaware of each other." Why? Byfield in Linux.com shares what he thinks. It's somehow related to language (jargon) gap, domain of work gap, and even age gap.

Still related, I also found through the CivicActions blog that Creative Commons has just released a "Developing Nations" license.

This new license allows creators to make their works available for attributed free distribution (copies can be freely shared, providing the original creator is credited) in the Global South, while still retaining all copyright control in the Global North.

Here's another good quote:

We're trying to hack the copyright system, in the programmers sense of hack. Not to break it but make it function in ways it wasn't intended to work. That's not because we're opposed to copyright, but because we're opposed to copyright functioning in ways that don't benefit either the author or the end user. Copyright is meant to be a tool to promote invention

So why oh why does a gap still lie between the nerds and the activists?

technorati tags: ICT-for-development

Slow Cities

2006-11-28T15:55:00.000+07:00

Tired of racing all the time, trying to catch the economy while losing on "good life"? Well, consider this: an international (mostly European) network of cities are joining the "Slow Cities" movement. Here's a piece from Planetizen:

[E]ven though the dynamics of globalization are affecting cities and regions, urban planners, mayors, and citizens of small towns are taking action to resist processes of standardization and homogenization. Slow Cities are dedicated to community economic development efforts that focus on the unique attributes of a place such as small businesses, locally owned restaurants, farmers markets, and socially responsible enterprises.
...
Slow Cities want to be at the forefront of cutting-edge urban planning ideas, technology and innovation. They are not against locating a McDonald's, but rather hope that through their efforts the citizens will become educated consumers who are aware of the local choices and option for getting fresh, healthly and tasty meals. Slow Cities want to be eventful places where local traditions are celebrated and mixed with cosmopolitan influences.

I see this in-line with the rationale behind "smart growth":

Smart growth tries to take into consideration the total long-term economic costs of development decisions, rather than merely an aggregation of the short term profits that can be made by improving each individual parcel of land.

As in: sure, (economic) development is important, but what about preserving some "good life" while we're pursuing it, for us and for our children?

technorati tags: cities, development, growth, slow-cities

Buy Nothing Day: Nov 24 & 25

2006-11-22T09:57:00.000+07:00

Consumption is important. Some would say that it's so important, it's "the most fundamental decision unit." Others would say that it's so important, once in a while we need to stop and think about it, be critical about it, and not just take it for granted.

Adbusters is part of the latter. Here's what they say:

"Every November, for 24 hours, we remember that no one was born to shop. If you’ve never taken part in Buy Nothing Day, or if you’ve taken part in the past but haven’t really committed to doing it again, consider this: 2006 will go down as the year in which mainstream dialogue about global warming finally reached its critical mass. What better way to bring the Year of Global Warming to a close than to point in the direction of real alternatives to the unbridled consumption that has created this quagmire?"

technorati tags: political-economy, consumerism, buy-nothing-day

Who's afraid of Vietnam?

2006-11-16T10:20:00.000+07:00

Newsweek has a really positive report on the Vietnam economy. Some quotes:

Economic reforms pushed by Southern entrepreneurs have fueled an economy that's grown nearly as fast as China's over the last decade. Manufacturing jobs are plentiful, and the national poverty rate has plummeted from 57 percent in 1993 to about 18 percent today.
...
[Vietnam] could become Southeast Asia's most important industrial economy in the coming decades, with the potential to surpass Thailand. This year alone, Vietnam is on track for $7 billion in foreign direct investment, roughly the same as giant India."
...
Often compared to China, Vietnam is actually more similar to Taiwan circa 1970, an economy then burgeoning with small and medium enterprises ready to burst onto the global scene.

A few weeks back Enda led me to this post from a Malaysian concerned about Indonesia's progress. It's was sad to realize that our advancement is seen with worry by others. I thought, "why couldn't we grow together?"

And now I'm in his shoes. As a fellow south-east Asian, I thought I should be proud of Vietnam's achievement, but I'm getting shivers instead. For example, I'm afraid that investments would keep going to Vietnam instead of Indonesia.

Apparently, developing countries' economic progress is also seen with shivers by free-trade protagonists of the developed world. Guardian's senior economics commentator, William Keegan, told the dilemma of "someone who had been a senior international official promoting free trade and open markets for many years." This person "had met an old friend whose previously successful US furniture business had collapsed in the face of the kind of international competition that he (the former official) had been busily promoting."

My dad once told me of a "negative" character common to the old people from our village that should be avoided: "happy to see others miserable, miserable to see others happy." But now it seems that such character is the dominant mindset.

I don't know whether I should be sad, happy, or just embrace this with a straight face.

Pic source: Newsweek.

technorati tags: political-economy, Vietnam, free-trade

Wasting rice

2006-11-16T10:13:00.000+07:00

Tempo Interactive reported that

Indonesia needs up to 195 thousand tons of rice by the end of this year. There is a gap between rice production and consumption rate.
Not only rice production can't keep up with population growth, but in following years it is expected to decline due to decrease of the harvest field measurement and land fertility.

A few days ago a friend forwarded me an email that seem to be written by someone called Tarunajaya. It talks about how everyday rice is wasted by people who don't finish their meals:

Ceritanya ada seorang anak SD yang memenangkan suatu perlombaan pembuatan makalah dikampungnya. Masalah yang diangkat oleh anak ini sederhana sekali, yaitu pemborosan beras orang indonesia. Makalah ini dia susun melalui pengamatan saat bekerja membantu di warung dekat rumahnya.

Dalam pengamatannya dia menghitung bahwa rata-rata orang yg makan disana menyisakan 2 atau lebih sendok nasi atau 200 butir nasi setiap piringnya.

Kemudian dia menghitung, berarti setiap hari setiap org membuang 200 x 3 kali makan = 600 butir nasi. 100 butir beras kira-kira 5 gram. Sehingga kalau dikonversikan berarti setiap hari setiap org membuang 30 gr beras. Kalau org Indonesia ada 200 jt berarti terbuang 30 gr x 200jt = 6.000 jt gr = *6.000 ton beras SETIAP HARI*. Iya, satu hari saja sedemikian banyak beras yg terbuang.

The point is that rice is available. It's just that people who has it are wasting it. A classic problem of wealth distribution, rather than production. Amartya Sen has covered this since he wrote Poverty and Famines over two decades ago.

technorati tags: economics, rice, food-distribution

The economics of increasingly disasterous global warming

2006-11-16T10:03:00.000+07:00

From BBC, a couple of weeks ago (link via John Orford):

A report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%. But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product.

Studies about global warming are nothing new. What's interesting about the Stern Report is that it's "the first major contribution to the global warming debate by an economist, rather than an environmental scientist."

[The report] warns that if no action is taken:

Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people

Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world's population

Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become extinct

Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of "climate refugees"

...
The review coincides with the release of new data by the United Nations showing an upward trend in emission of greenhouse gases - a development for which Sir Nicholas said that rich countries must shoulder most of the responsibility.

John Orford suggested to use Pigouvian Taxes as disincentives to pollution:

Pigou noticed that production often causes costs to the environment which the company themselves don't have to pay. Obviously the users of the environment generally have to pay the cost sooner or later in some form.

Pigou's idea was to tax the sale of products depending on how polluting they were, in effect the government would recoup the cost to the environment of the product. Consumer's would directly see the high cost of highly polluting products, which would give them an incentive to seek out less polluting products and firms to pollute less.

technorati tags: economics, global-warming

In defense of rural-urban migration

2006-11-13T10:21:00.000+07:00

Kompas this weekend featured a special report on rural-urban migration. Two main arguments were presented in favor of this: the "no-alternative" argument, and the "rights-based" argument.

The "no-alternative" argument basically says that life in the villages sucks. Due to failure of rural livelihoods, some of the younger females had to become commercial sex workers, older males day laborers.

Marco Kusumawijaya, as proponent of the "rights-based" argument, said,

Wartiyah, like all migrants, including the Governor, came to Jakarta to look for a better life...
[...]
The job of cities is to respect this right, help them go through the process of becoming good urban dwellers, and as far as possible serve them as citizens who give governments a reason for being.

However, two city governments (in Bandung and Makassar) complain about rural-urban migration. They say,

For those who come and work, it's no problem. But for those who can't find work and become homeless, they becomes a heavy burden for the government.

What? You mean if they're unemployed in the village, it's not your burden? You're lucky Indonesia doesn't have to pay a stiped for the unemployed (like in some welfare states), and you're complaining that the people are taking care of their own lives, whereas the government has failed to do so?

To give more weight to the migration proponents, let me propose a third argument: that "urbanization is good" and should be prepared for with optimism. More labor in cities enable cheaper cost of everything, i.e. construction, food, domestic help, factory-based production. Low-income rural migrants keep cities competitive.

Imagine if you have to pay double for your food and triple for your babysitter (because it's so hard to find cheap labor). Then you'd probably demand more wage from your employer. If so, then the employer might think that your city is not competitive anymore, and they'll move their business to another city. What do you say now?

Why do we keep blaming the negative effects rural-urban migration to the low capacity of our migrants? Why don't we blame the entrepreneurs who are not ready to absorb such opportunity? Why don't we blame our education system that failed to prepare its citizens to become able workers? Why don't we thank the positive effects of having rural migrants in the city, such as the cheap food and services that we consume, and maybe our job too?

technorati tags: cities, urbanization, migration

Problems in water supply privatization

2006-11-10T08:52:00.000+07:00

Ater 10 years of privatization, it seems that neither the government nor the private sector can deal with Jakarta water provision satisfactorily.

First off, government-owned Regional Water Corporations (PDAMs) are a mess. According to a Ministry of Public Works publication (Implementation of Safe Water Provision System 2005), PDAM's piped water system only serves 42% of the urban and 8% of the rural populations in Indoneisa. Out of 318 PDAMs nationwide, only 10% are "healthy". "Leakage" (both in the literal and connotative sense) reach 36%.

That's why in Jakarta PAM has joint contract agreements with PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) and PT Thames PAM Jaya. However, after 10 years of privatization, Kompas reported that the tug-of-war between PAM and their private foreign counterparts are going strong.

Regarding privatization, a PAM representative said,

there's no benefit for PAM, only for the foreign counterparts. We're only sucked dry, and consumers are put at a loss.

The Amrta Institute of Water Literacy said that problems include high fee paid to the foreign companies for expatriats and loan guarantee. And,

Although Palyja claim deficit, in reality they received profits of Rp 115 billion in 2004 and Rp 58 billion in 2005. Meanwhile, PAM's debts keep increasing.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the National Audit Agency (BPK) can only audit the PAM, but not Palyja or Thames PAM Jaya.

There seems to be a growing movement to return PAM to being a national/government-run agency. This should be seen with caution: do we really want to return to the classic condition of PDAM "sickness" and water/money "leakages"? But if we hand everything over to the private sector, it seems that nothing much is changing, while profits are taken away.

Maybe the best way out is self/collective management, as we have in the villages.

PS:
1. See AMPL's workshop on water and sanitation regulatory framework.
2. See Walhi's take on Water Resource Law no. 7/2004
3. See Water Justice: resource center on alternatives to privatization

Update:
1. Enda said: "There's one great article (... on Fortune) about water privatization that says water will be the oil of 21st century...". I couldn't get access to the Magazine's special report in 2000, but found this, this, this, and this instead.

2. UNDP's Human Development Report for 2006 is titled Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis.

technorati tags: water, privatization, political-economy

Less e-mail, more SMS

2006-11-09T11:31:00.000+07:00

Indonesians may think e-mail is "more advanced" than SMS/text messaging. SMS has been widely used since the cellphone boom in the late 1990s, while e-mail tends to be for the rich who can afford a computer.

In the US, it may be the other way around. When I was in LA in 2003-04, SMS was not very popular. I'd send one to my friend and she wouldn't know how to open or reply it.

But that is changing. At least among the young Americans. For them, now, "e-mail is for old people." Students still use e-mail to correspond with professors, but with friends they'd use more SMS, Instant messaging, or social networking sites such as MySpace. A major reason for the first two is that they accomodate more real-time communication.

So just because cellphones are cheaper than computers, it doesn't mean that SMS is "less advanced" than e-mail. In the future,

mobile phones will be the prime means of accessing the web for users in developing countries.

Links are from varnelis.net. Apophenia further explains what she means by "email is dead"

technorati tags: ICT-for-development

Holcim, Grameen Bank, and housing for the poor

2006-11-08T17:17:00.000+07:00

Just found out that Nobelaureate Muhammad Yunus, co-founder of Grameen Bank, is also a founding member of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Advisory Board.

Holcim has been very active in building a strong social face in Indonesia, especially since the Aceh reconstructions. The Grameen Bank approach is gaining popularity here as well, which is crucial in getting conventional bank’s attention to the poor as clients.

Are we seeing a light in the effort to bring private sector financing to enable the poor to build houses?

Just to balance things off: my friend was outraged when he found out about Yunus and Holcim. He said, "See.. this whole Grameen Bank thing is part of the global capitalism scheme!"

Previous post on problems with low-income housing mortgage

technorati tags: housing, poor

AMARC 9: World Community Radio Gathering

2006-11-08T10:18:00.000+07:00

The 9th World Conference and General Assembly of community radio broadcasters (AMARC 9)is coming up on November 11th. Combine is sending 2 people there.

An interesting topic to be discussed at AMARC 9 is the social impact of community radios. What difference do community radios make, nowadays? The World Congress on Communication for Development apparently didn't think there's much difference. Here's how AMARC viewed their stand:

Radio specialists are dismayed that the global meeting has overlooked the vital role of community radio in empowering people and strengthening democracy in many regions, including, conflict places.

id21 insights stands by AMARC and says that community radios provide "voices for change."

While much of the debate focuses on the Internet, many planners and practitioners have begun to realise that it is to traditional media, such as radio, that poor people are most likely to turn for access to information and voice.

technorati tags: ICT-for-development, community-radio, AMARC

Bush's war hurts Americans too

2006-11-04T19:35:00.000+07:00

Hizbut Tahrir rallied today to reject Bush's plan to visit Indonesia.

Many Indonesians, however, have not realized that Dubya's war is not only hurthing the rest of the world, but US citizens too. Wokusch's article on dissidentvoice said that:

... the endless war on terror requires a permanent war economy, with taxpayers subsidizing the military industry at the expense of domestic social programs and global security. In 2000, for example, the US military budget was roughly $289 billion, but the administration's military budget request for 2007 has soared to $462.7 (billion).

Could it be that the war has caused the recent US deficits?

When Bush took office in 2001, for example, the annual surplus was $284 billion. He turned that surplus into a deficit of $248 billion by 2006, a staggering loss of over $530 billion in five short years.

It should be interesting to compare this data with profits that some companies, like Halliburton maybe, has made over those years.

technorati tags: politics, bush, war-economy

The source of Jakarta's congestion

2006-11-02T21:05:00.000+07:00

Head of Jakarta Transportation Agency, Mr. Nurachman, is optimistic that Jakarta's traffic congestion problem will be solved in 5 years. That is if people use the busway. This statement was given at Metro TV's Padamu Negeri talk show this evening.

I think the theme of the talkshow, "Busway: Source of Jakarta's Congestion?" was ridiculous. Apparently many people are aggravated that the building of busway lines have taken so long, and taken valuable traffic space away. Nurachman, however, said that the main problem lies in the 300 new cars and 1,500 new motorcycles which are "born" everyday in Jakarta.

The head of Indonesia Transportation Society suggested that the government should conduct better public communication and be open to dialogues on problems caused by the process of building busway lines.

Previous post on Busway here.

technorati tags: cities, jakarta, busway

Hype, Semi-Hype, and Reality in "ICT for Development"

2006-10-31T16:15:00.000+07:00

Vietnam will soon have 13 new telecenters in 10 provinces. The Saigon Times said,

Farmers in some of the country’s least developed provinces now have instant access to pricing and market information through a new telecenter initiative developed by the agriculture ministry, Intel and UNDP.

The Economist, on the other hand, was more interested in mobile phones, both on political issues,

Chroniclers of cellular people power identify two big landmarks: the rallies that toppled President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines in 2001, and South Korea's presidential election a year later, when text messages among the young brought a surge of support for President Roh Moo-hyun.

and economic issues:

About half a million South Africans now use their mobile phones as a bank. Besides sending money to relatives and paying for goods, they can check balances, buy mobile airtime and settle utility bills. Traditional banks offer mobile banking as an added service to existing customers, most of whom are quite well off. But [some banks] are chasing another market: the 16m South Africans, over half of the adult population, with no bank account. Significantly, 30% of these people do have mobile phones.

The Office of Data and Information in Sinjai, South Sulawesi, on the other hand, is more interested in the power of interactive radio broadcasting.

By facilitating a two-way information flow, the head of the office, Andi Grandyanto Asapa, enables checks and balances between the people and the government.

His public radio "Sinjai Bersatu" receives from the people at least 40 phone calls and 100 SMS per day, most about complaints and suggestions for the government. Pak Grandyanto's staff then types those messages and forwards them to the district head (Bupati). Later, his reporters go to the field to check whether the government has handled the reported complaints.

technorati tags: ICT-for-development

Capitalism for the Poor, Socialism for the Rich

2006-10-30T09:38:00.000+07:00

The phrase "making capitalism work for the poor" shows that capitalism, in its current form, has not worked for the poor. But Nobelaureate Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank has proved that it can.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, on the other hand, is trying to prove that socialism can work for the rich too. The nationalization of Bolivia's gas and oil sector means that multinational companies are not getting as good a deal as they had before. Still, they signed the new contract, which proves that they're still making good enough profit out of it.

The caveat about Morales' nationalization program is that it can easily lead to inefficient bureaucracy and corruption as in the case of Indonesia's Pertamina. Therefore, efforts must be taken to make sure that socialism has its checks and balances, and still allow for some healthy competition.

Yunus used this principle with the Grameen Bank. He balanced capitalism by a strong motive to make it work for the poorest, i.e. by "tweaking" the system ('no collateral is fine'). His success is also due to efforts at strengthening comunity values of burden-sharing and collective achievement.

Can Morales "tweak" socialism in this style? If he can, do you think he'll get a Nobel Peace Prize in, say, 20 years from now?

Update:
See Amien Rais' take on Bolivia's oil & gas nationalization.

technorati tags: political-economy

Complexity as humanity's essence

2006-10-30T09:00:00.000+07:00

Idul Fitri celebrations just passed. They say the holy days were observed to celebrate human's return to its "essence." But what is humanity's essence?

For me, it's complexity. There is no single way to dissect humanity, as humans are both rational and emotional, individual and social, physical and spiritual, "good" and "bad."

Two weeks ago my cousin passed away. She was just 16. Her mom told this story:

She laid in the hospital bed. Signs of life were fading away. But everytime we cried, her heartbeat regained. It's as if her soul was struggling to keep her body alive, because it seems that we weren't ready to let her go. Finally we stopped crying and told her: "we're ready to let you go." And she went. Peacefully.

My cousin was an example of how the (stronger) spiritual side has to give way to a dying physical body. My grandma, at home, is the other way around. In her late 70s, her body is still OK. But her mind has increasingly given up. We can dissect the mind and the body one-by-one, but overall, when we talk about someone as a person, both aspects count.

And in the same way, humans are both rational and emotional. Everything can be rationalized, but rationality is not everything. Last Ramadhan, Arya argued against giving to beggars because "our gift was mainly to make ourselves feel good." At the end of the post, he linked to an article from The Economist that explains - neurologically - why humans feel good when they give. No surprise or contradiction here. In Islamic teaching, giving and charity (as well as making much profit) are encouraged - not just for the sake of the needy, but for the giver as well. Giving nurtures the emotional side of the giver - the side that keeps him/her humane.

An article in Kompas a few days ago tells the story of people working in Jakarta, making Rp 2,000 - 5,000 (20 - 50 cents) a day. They save Rp 1 million ($100) after a year, and spend it all for Idul Fitri purposes back in their village with their relatives. Maybe this is similar to the traditional people of Tana Toraja in Sulawesi, who spend a lifetime's saving to give a "proper" funeral celebration for their deceased, together with fellow villagers.

If on one side we have rationality, individualism, capitalism, and the physical, then on the other side we have emotions, collective order, socialism, and the spiritual. That's why any attempt to make extreme the values of one side will be challenged by equal resistance from the other side. There's nothing special going on here. It's just humanity at work.

Picture credit: Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci - from Wikipedia

Cellphones, Real-time Prices, Real-time Negotiations

2006-10-19T01:00:00.000+07:00

One hype/rhetoric in the field of "ICT for Development" is that price information, in the hands of poor producers, can help such producers gain leverage in dealing with middlemen. This is maybe true, but then again too many "ICT for Development" initiatives are so focused on the Internet, they forget the simple things that actually work: real-time voice communication.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw pointed me to this Washington Post article on how cell phones have levelled the playing field in favor of poor fishers in the Indian fishing industry.

In this case, cell phones are more effective than a website containing list of prices, given that it's ubiquitous:

With 6 million new cellphone subscribers each month, industry analysts predict that in four years nearly half of India's 1.1 billion people will be connected by cellphone.

And dirt cheap:

less than a penny a minute -- the world's cheapest cellphone call rates

technorati tags: ICT-for-development

Farmers' poverty: various factors

2006-10-13T10:40:00.000+07:00

Sarapan Ekonomi has been facilitating a discussion about why our farmers stay poor (i.e., here and here). Surely an ambitious topic for some exchange of a few paragraphs, but I salute the initiative, the underlying idealism, and the lively discussion that also involves economists Arya and Ujang.

Although not an economist, I nevertheless want to contribute some thoughts, especially after my three-day visit to Muneng, a village in Kabupaten Madiun, East Java.

Despite winning a "swasembada pangan" (food self-sufficiency) award in 2002 from the Ministry of Agriculture, more than 40% of Muneng's residents remain poor. More than half are only elementary school graduates. This condition, among others, contributed to the selection of Muneng as a site for BPDE/Bappenas/UNDP's "telecenter" project that aims to use "ICT for poverty reduction." The project's main idea is that lack of access to ICTs is a major factor of poverty.

After some time working with poor farmers, project implementers have found that farmers' poverty is caused by a multitude of factors, and that lack of access ICT is merely one of them. Below, I will describe those other factors from their perspective, NOT in any specific order of importance.

One factor is dependency on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers don't produce these, companies do. Currently community organizers in Muneng and Pabelan, Central Java (another site for the project) are facilitating a few farmers' request to return to using organic fertilizers and natural predators to kill pests. These few now believe that organic farming produces better and more yield. [above: pic of organic fertilizer]

The second factor is farmers' lack of liquid assets (money). And no, this is not a tautology. Growing rice takes 4 months. During this time, a farmer may need money (regardless of whether they own land). So they borrow from "loan sharks" either with above market interest rates, or with an agreement that these "sharks" will buy their yield later, at below market price. With this condition, even farmers who's now doing organic farming sometimes have to sell their cow or goat's dung to these "sharks," only to buy it back later at higher price to be used as organic fertilizers.

The third factor is the small plots of land owned by each farmer, as Sarapan Ekonomi pointed out. Yes, this has been realized both by farmers and the Provincial government. That's why the province has started a program called "cooperative farming" (which is then also adopted by the Muneng telecenter), in which farmers who normally only have 0.3-0.4 hectare of land would be organized to collectivelly work on a minimum of 50 hectares land. However, as many field workers will tell you, organizing - much less land consolidation - is much easier said than done.

The fourth factor is related to conservative mindset and passive attitude. Since many farmers have forgotten the principles of organic farming that their ancestors once knew, now they are hesitant to try out a "different" method. Many would rather be "pasrah" (accept an uncomfortable condition) rather than force themselves to lean and invest in new things. "What if organic farming doesn't give better results?" they ask. So organizers gave them examples of successful organic farmers in nearby village. "What if it wouldn't work here? The soil may be different!" so they'd refute. [above: pic of organic paddy (right) compared to non-organic paddy, both at same age. The organic paddy is fuller and weighs more]

Pak Sukat is a successful farmer in the village of Babatan, 7 km away from Muneng. From the telecenter, he'd downloaded the latest methods to grow melon (including use of more organic fertilizers). Now he produces melons (and tomatoes, and rice) with less cost and more yield. One thing he had to do was to install a water pump on his farm to ensure water. Muneng residents, however, have been very reluctant to follow this method. "What if nothing changes, although we've invested in building the pump?" they'd ask. [left: pic of Pak Sukat with his water pump]

The latter is a soft factor, which sadly is too often overlooked, simply because it is ‘invisible and tacit.' Technocrats' ideology that the future can be engineered, and that poverty is in essence a technological (and/or market-related problem), fails to see that it is more likely to be caused by ‘a crisis of the spirit, a loss of political will, a cycle of self-defeat, and essentially about powerlessness, about fear, about the deadening realization that one’s children will not have a better life.’ This is Inayatullah in Transforming Communication: Technology, Sustainability and Future Generation.

So there you go. Four factors as to why farmers are poor, based on three-days' interaction with with field workers, right in the village of Muneng. Surely this is not meant to generalize all Indonesian farmers, as I've also found some who are very progressive, such those organized by SPPQT federation in Salatiga/Central Java. Are there more factors to farmers' poverty? Sure: take lack of access to affordable quality seeds, post-harvest processing, markets, and more. Which factor is the most important? I wouldn't be interested. They all matter and has to be dealt with equal seriousness. It's not a matter of "either or", but "both and also."

technorati tags: development, farmers, poverty, ICT-for-development

A Longer Life for What?

2006-10-12T20:36:00.000+07:00

Daniel Goleman has once again pointed out that humans, as much as they are individual-rational beings, are social- emotional beings. The author of Emotional Intelligence and newly published Social Intelligence said that

Research on the link between relationships and physical health has established that people with rich personal networks — who are married, have close family and friends, are active in social and religious groups — recover more quickly from disease and live longer.

We often consider "a long life" as something good. However, an NYT article last month offered an alternative food for thought: would we (as society) rather have "a longer life or more stuff"?

This question in is more contextual in the US, where

The average cost of a family insurance plan ... has risen another 7.7 percent this year, to $11,500 ... In only seven years, the cost has doubled, while incomes and company revenue, which pay for health insurance, haven’t risen nearly as much.

"A longer life" means significant costs in the form of lost (economic) opportunity. In advanced countries, this translates mostly to money spent for healthcare. In developing ones, time spent by the family to take care of the old.

The first article pointed out how to enjoy life (and quickly recover from diseases) while we're still productive. The second one asked how long do we "need" to live anyway, especially if we're no longer productive or have become a "burden" for others.

What do you think?

Illustration credit: personal.rockbridge.net

technorati tags: happiness

Celebrating Cities and Migrant Workers

2006-10-02T01:22:00.000+07:00

World Habitat Day's theme for this year is "Cities: Magnets of Hope." The theme is chosen to commemorate how migrant workers, be it national or international, are increasingly coming in to cities. On one hand, cities may become strained. On the other hand, cities may be showered by "the gold dust of the economy." Are we going to complain, or take advantage of the situation? It all depends on how we view the in-migrating urban poor: as liability, or asset. (Don't forget to check out the Habitat Debate magazine on this topic)

I, for one, am in support of (low-wage) migrant workers coming in to areas/economies which are more capital-intensive than labor-intensive. My economic-geography professor once told this 18th/19th century story, when the U.S. was more labor-intensive (relatively more workable land than people), and Europe was more labor-intensive (relatively more people than workable land). The opening up of borders saw the migration of many (almost a quarter?) of Europe's working population into the U.S. Afterwards, low wages in Europe rose, and high wages in the U.S. dropped. In the end, both economies grew handsomely as production needs both labor and capital. Sorry for the lack of hard data. Don't have time to rummage through my old notes.

Anyway, I'm currently less in touch with the cyber world, as I'm doing a lot of traveling to the villages to see how effective telecenters (and ICT in general) really are for poverty reduction. Will share more about this later.

technorati tags: world-habitat-day, cities, migration

Excitement of a Migrant Worker

2006-09-20T18:28:00.000+07:00

Excitement is contagious. That's why I caught one from Roni Pasla in the Jakarta airport this afternoon.

Roni just returned from a one-year contract as a ship crew for an oil field off the shores of Kuwait. He's originally from Batam, and currently working for Siemens off the shores of Sumatra. His contract in the middle east is also as the company's employee.

To get this job, he first attended the BPLP Semarang school for sailors. He just took the "basic" course for about a month, which awarded him a certificate to be qualified for the job. The program costs about Rp 800k (~90 USD). Then he had to pay a "broker" a one-time fee of 300 USD, which is OK since his job in the middle east pays 300 USD a month.

Roni came home happy and excited, full of optimism and pride. He shows off his English, and boasted how he learned that from zero in only a year. He said, at the arrival hall, an officer thought he was a "TKI" (low-skill, low-wage Indonesian migrant worker), and almost forced him to go to a counter where he's sure he'd get robbed of his hard-earned money. But proudly he said, "I'm a Siemens employee. Here's my documents. And the officer apologized."

On another note, my sister told me this morning that she's invited to a discussion on a possible free-trade agreement between Indonesia and the U.S. Here's what I said:

I'd support it ONLY on one condition: that the agreement would allow Indonesia to export what it can produce best: cheap labor. And please, no discrimination on people with Muslim names, and Pesantren (Muslim boarding school) background.

technorati tags: political-economy

Barcelona: Truly Rich

2006-09-20T14:42:00.000+07:00

How do you tell that a person is truly rich? She puts intangible things (i.e., pride, benevolence, and happiness) before money.

Since way back, gigantic, Spain-based Barcelona Football Club never wears any sponsor's logo on their jersey, foregoing tens of millions of pounds a year. But this week they start to wear Unicef's logo.

Unicef is not paying Barcelona anything. Instead, Barcelona is paying Unicef 1.5 million euros a year to help poor children suffering from AIDS. Furthermore, Unicef can use any of Barcelona's players (including popular Ronaldinho) as its spokespersons, for free. Barcelona simply said, "we're more than a football club."

I've never been a big fan of Barcelona. Actually I just realized that their jerseys used to be "clean" (Oh.. so that's why they look so 'awkward'!). But now, I'll be paying more attention to them. And that is good marketing on Barcelona's part. Marketing aimed for the heart.

First photo credit: bbc.co.uk
Second photo credit: New York Times via here.

technorati tags: happiness

On Sri Mulyani's Award

2006-09-19T22:56:00.000+07:00

Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati was selected as Best Finance Minister in Asia, 2006, by Emerging Markets Forum. The award was given amidst the IMF and World Bank meeting in Singapore.

Here's what a friend said: "But she's only been in office for a year."
Here's what another said: "Soekarno once said, 'if the capitalists are praising us, then we must be doing something wrong.'"

Photo credit: emergingmarkets.org

technorati tags: Indonesia, politics

On being post-modern

2006-09-18T11:22:00.000+07:00

Post-modernism, at a glance, may seem like a difficult, abstract concept. Books that reflect this idea seem absurd to read, as they analyze simple, banal things in manners that seem unnecessarily complex.

However, if there's one thing that I learned about post-modernism, it's the very simple concept that things are not as simple as they look, that there are a lot of factors that contribute to how things turn out, and even "how things turn out" depends on how one presents it.

History matters, but look again: who's point of view does it reflect? We thus should not be talking of History, but of histories. Gender matters, and thus even histories may be seen as "his stories," and therefore we should hear more of "her stories" to give a more complete picture. Race matters. If you don't recognize this since you're part of a racial majority in a certain place, go to another place where you're a minority. Then most likely you'll understand how you're being discriminated against, and how you, as part of a racial majority, may have discriminated against minorities. Geography matters. See how where you're born, where you work, and where your business is located decide how much money you have/make. You get my point.

Some people, who have been so accustomed to modernist, simplistic thinking, are frustrated by post-modernism. "If everything matters, then nothing really matters! Where do we even start?"

Well, that's the beauty of it, isn't it? Since many things matter, then we can start anywhere. However, we do need better leaders, who see a more complete picture, and are great at coordinating various sectors to achieve a common goal. The leader should also be more careful about making generalizing, over-arching statements, and only do so when it's really needed.

technorati tags: post-modernism

Tribute to A. Fatih Syuhud

2006-09-14T07:46:00.000+07:00

Do you know that feeling of excitement when you meet someone who share your mission? That's how I felt when I was first directed into Fatih's blog.

Famous Blogger Indonesia A. Fatih Syuhud is a big driver of the "bottom-up information" movement. He says,

I'd love to see many more Indonesian bloggers blog in English, the most-widely-understood world language. So that the world knows and understands more about Indonesia by reading anything written by Blogger Indonesia.

Back in 2001, when I was so excited about the "bridging the digital divide" movement, my friend, Kang Didi, adjusted my perspective by saying this:

The most frightening aspect of the digital divide is not that the poor won’t get information, but that the poor won’t be able to contribute the making of mainstream knowledges, that they will be stuck as knowledge consumers, never producers, and that one day their local knowledges and wisdoms will disappear.

Back in those days, blogs were not so far developed. For the average people to get their message across in the Internet, they'd have to learn HTML. Then they'd have to learn tricks on how to get their website found in search engines. Today, blogs make the "bottom-up information" movement more easier and accessible. One does not have to learn HTML. Machines built into blog providers, also tools such as technorati and del.icio.us, make blogs easy to find. Audience has also widened by people being more critical of mainstream media. A good example of the "bottom-up information" movement is Global Voices, for which Fatih and my friend, Enda, are contributors.

Still, I think the "bottom-up information" movement cannot stand alone. It needs to be complimented by "better top-down information." Currently there are a lot of knowledges and research results (at the elite level, i.e., LIPI, BPPT) that are useful for poor. However, they are presented in such a way that is "un-readable" by the poor. For example, a farmer in Salatiga told me:

Yes, they trained me to use the Internet. I wanted to find information about better technologies for farming chilly. I found it. But it's a 20-page report! After reading the first 2 pages, I gave up. I didn't understand the language. It's too technical.

The Government has tried to deal with this by making the Warintek CD-ROMs: a compilation of Indonesian local, practical knowledges. The Pe-PP project is using the role of "infomobilizers" (community organizers with an ICT perspective), so that by way of information found over the Internet and direct facilitation (meaning contextualization and translation into "the people's language"), a farmer group in Muneng, Madiun, was enabled to grow better, bigger melons and find the buyers. That's why, as much as I agree with Fatih about people blogging in English, I'd also suggest people to blog in plain, simple Bahasa Indonesia. Or any traditional language.

Then there's also a matter of "side-way information," from one member of a community/ class/ group to another member. This is community building, and there's already many examples of this on the Internet. However, we need to see more "side-way information" building between the poor and marginalized. An attempt at this is the Saluran Informasi Akar Rumput initiative.

Each of these three movements need champions. And A. Fatih Syuhud, hands down, is one of the best champions of the "bottom-up information" movement.

This week, Fatih made me "Blogger of the Week." It sure is an honor, and I humbly thank him.

technorati tags: information, knowledge, ICT-for-development

Optimism and Pessimism of Busway

2006-09-13T18:50:00.000+07:00

Jakarta is building corridors IV-VII of dedicated bus lanes ("busway"). Many people complain about traffic jams that the process is causing. "Stupid busways!" they say. I, on the other hand, think congestion is a natural, temporary, side-effect of busway development. Like having your house renovated: of course it's a hassle. But after a while, it will be a nicer place to live.

Darmaningtyas of the Indonesian Transportation Society said that congestion will subside if busways can attract people to leave their cars. And this is probable: 77.2% are in favor of busways, with certain conditions:

Berdasarkan riset INSTRAN (2005) kepada 304 pemakai mobil pribadi, responden itu siap meninggalkan kendaraan pribadi dan pindah ke busway dengan syarat: jalur yang mereka lalui ada busway (44,8 persen), busway memberi kenyamanan (24,1 persen), dan kemacetan terus terjadi di jalur yang mereka lalui (19 persen). Oleh sebab itu, 77,2 persen dari 304 responden mengharapkan agar jalur yang mereka lalui dibangun busway.
...
Sayang, hasil riset ITDP-INSTRAN (2006) menunjukkan bahwa ketidaknyamanan dalam busway salah satunya karena berdesak-desakan merupakan aspek terburuk dari pelayanan busway Koridor I-III.

Darmaningtyas thus proposes more buses, better management, and feeder vehicles. I would add secure parking space at the end of busway routes for people driving from the suburbs, but take the busway into/out of the city.

An interesting factor that needs to be taken into account is what we forego by having a better transportation system: i.e., the jobs of drivers and keneks of at least 550 Mikrolet (minibus) units!

Yang pasti sekitar 550 unit lebih Mikrolet 01 (Kampung Melayu-Senen) akan hilang karena jalurnya l00 persen beririsan dengan busway Koridor V (Kampung Melayu-Ancol)... Angkutan umum lain yang beririsan dengan busway Koridor IV, VI, dan VII juga akan mengalami nasib yang sama (hilang)...

Based on queries I made to 5 Jakarta taxi drivers so far, it's clear that their income is decreasing since Busways started (current income is 20% to 60% of previous income).

So what will bus drivers, taxi driver, and keneks become now? Go figure.

Photo credit: jakarta.go.id

technorati tags: cities, urban, jakarta, busway

Easily Happy

2006-09-11T10:48:00.000+07:00

If you were given a choice: happy or money, which would you pick? I'd guess many would answer both. And that's fine. I have nothing against money (heck, I like money); I just think it's over-rated. But think again: do we really need money to be happy?

Here's an anecdote my friend once told me:
A Western, white man finds a brown, indigeous Indonesian lying around on the beach, somewhere on the shores of Java. "Why aren't you working?" asked the white.
"Why should I?" asked the brown.
"So you can have money."
"What for?"
"So one day you can lie around on the beach, and enjoy life without worrying about anything."
"But I'm already doing that."

In Harry Potter #1, there's a story about a mirror. When one looks into this mirror, he will see himself in the form of what he desires most. For example, one sees himself receiving an award. Harry Potter sees himself besides his two deceased parents whom he never met. The happiest person just sees himself as he is.

Imagine you're looking into this mirror, and figure how much money is related to what you see. No, please really think about it. You want self-esteem? Then treat people respectfully. You want a new experience? Go interact with people you'd never thought you would. You want to feel good? Give something that you value to a nice person who needs it more than you do. Then forget about what you've done.

Paradoxically, happiness is easiest to achieve by giving something away. So go ahead: make dinner for your wife. Recite a poem for your partner. Win a basketball game for your boyfriend. Give her a massage. Do it wholeheartedly. Now you see what I'm talking about.

One of my mentors, Kang Didi, has a really cool catch-phrase: "gampang senang" (easily happy). And he's right: happiness is easy to find. It's all in our minds. Money sure is valuable. Just don't forget to be happy while you pursue it.

Previous posts on happiness: 1, 2, 3, 4

technorati tags: happiness

Cities, Homes, and the Middle Class

2006-09-05T22:30:00.000+07:00

Congratulations go to Marco Kusumawijaya, who just launched his new book, titled Kota Rumah Kita (The City, Our Home), last night in Aksara Bookstore, Kemang. I'll write a review about the book later, but now I'll just highlight some points from the launch.

It's encouraging to have a book on (Indonesian) cities that has some theoretical dimensions, but is also very clear in its activist stand. A number of (Indonesian) urban planners and architects have also written books on a similar topic, but they tend to be highly theory oriented, and lacking any drive to push for change. Marco is one of the few activist-architects who writes well, and there's a good chance that this book can inspire people to do something.

Ayu Utami, author of Saman, gave a welcome note on this book. I only remember one thing about her speech: that efforts should be taken to build a "middle class consortium." Someone then questioned whether or not that is bourgeoisie instead. Marco then explained that for too long, the middle class has been helped by the lower class, in terms of advocacy for public interests. For example, it's the lower class who first protested the hundreds of million rupiahs allocated yearly for Jakarta governor's clothes and furniture. Any how, Marco views that an organized society (or society composed of organized people-based entities) is the way to go.

To be honest, I'm a bit skeptical of the "middle class consortium." Not many members of the "middle class" are like Marco and Ayu, who is relatively "independent" in terms of income. Most are working for large corporations, and highly dependent on such corporations to continue and enjoy their "good life." I do agree with the second part, though, that an organized society is a stronger society.

technorati tags: cities, urban, middle-class, activism

Can SBY eliminate deep-rooted corruption?

2006-09-05T22:22:00.000+07:00

Indonesian President SBY is trying hard to convince businesspeople to invest. He said the Government will reform central and local regulations, enforce the law, improve infrastructure, increase political stability, and eliminate corruption. Easier said than done. At the Forbes Global Conference, Steve Forbes, who moderated a dialog session with SBY, paid special attention to Indonesia and how it will deal with corruption.

You see, corruption is deeply rooted here. My friend, who's trying to run an honest gasoline logistics business in Pekanbaru, complained about the police force yesterday. "Even if there's no problem at all, they'll stop your truck and say there's a problem. To 'deal with the problem,' you'd have to pay at least 250,000 rupiahs," He said.

"What if you object, and if needed, bring a lawyer to take them to court?" naively I asked. "They'll still get you. Firstly, they'll take your truck to their station. Then on, it's completely their game. They can smash your headlight or your mirror, and then say that your vehicle had incomplete qualifications. In the meantime, your client is waiting to have his gasoline delivered! If you don't keep him satisfied, he'll turn to another distributor."

Without comprehensive attempt to deal with corruption (not just dealing with national-level policies), we can forget about SBY's dream to compete with China and India. How could he, if he can't even handle his own staff's misappropriation?

(Image from swaramuslim.net)

technorati tags: Indonesia, corruption

Low-income flats are profitable!

2006-09-05T22:15:00.000+07:00

Indonesian real estate mogul Ciputra is willing to invest whatever it takes to build low-income flats in Jakarta. The condition: Government provides land and reduces interest rate from 15% to 10%. "Consumers cannot pay 15%," he said. Obviously, if Ciputra is interested, that means there's good business.

On another article, the Jakarta government admits that it still needs to provide 125,000 low-income flat units to accomodate those still living under the highways, along railroads, in green areas, and along the river. They are also asking private developers to keep their promise to build 1,000 units in 2006-2007. In Berlan, East Jakarta, a 20-storey flat will be build to accomodate mainly army personnel (retired and active). Hope this does NOT become a 20-story slum with "tradable" right to occupy the units.

technorati tags: cities, settlements, housing

Ghetto-izing the Internet

2006-09-02T12:29:00.000+07:00

Nien pointed me to this cool resource: Urban Dictionary, "a slang dictionary with your definitions. Define your world." Check out how these phrases are (re-)defined:

January Joiner:
Someone who joins the gym in January as part of a New Year's resolution and by February is back to being a couch potato.

ho ho ho:
Santa's cry, or three prostitutes.

Similar to Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary allows people to collectively shape the world from THEIR perspective, based on THEIR understanding, not the expert's, not the few elite's.

Why am I bringing this up? As much as I like the the Internet, I am also concerned about its deficiencies and biases. ICT is not culturally neutral; it incorporates modernist, western values into whoever is using it or connected through it.

Inayatullah and Legget, in Transforming Communication, questioned ‘who speaks, who is on the net, and whose ways of knowing are privileged.’ Are women’s perspectives incorporated by the new technologies? Can women can use the new technologies to break out of traditional, marginalizing, roles?
A chapter by Obijiofor in this book was critical of the language of the Internet. Any language creates certain forms of thinking and suppresses others. English, in particular, as the Internet’s dominant language, is ‘a language of technical rationality’.
Manuel Castells, in End of Millenium, furthermore noted that there is a geographically uneven distribution of Internet content providers, as most of them are concentrated in a few metropolitan areas. This largely shapes the assumptions used in providing this content, and the types of content available on the Internet.
These region and life-style specific assumptions have led to the exclusion of non-metropolitan cultures, and as Castells wrote in The Internet Galaxy, make it ‘difficult for people without sufficient education, knowledge, and skills to appropriate the technology for their own interests and values.’

These are why I support efforts to bring alternative content into the Internet; content created by the not-yet-modernized, the non-urban, the marginalized urban, the non-English-language-oriented. A potential Indonesian example is Saluran Informasi Akar Rumput - an online news agency run by community radios in West Java and Yogyakarta. Through such initiatives, we can show that the world is not monolithic, that "our" knowledges are just as valuable as "their" Knowledge, and that the Internet can be used as a tool to diversify the world, rather than homogenize it.

technorati tags: ICT-for-Development, knowledge, technology

Robbery of Public Space, in the Name of Poverty?

2006-08-31T20:15:00.000+07:00

I am quite disturbed by Media Indonesia's editorial today. What's interesting is that I agree with most of the facts and suggestions presented. It's just the tone that bugs me. Consider these phrases (my own translation):

In the name of poverty, informal street vendors/hawkers are free to rob the public of its right to streets.

They have become dictators.

Would I be out of place to guess that Media Indonesia's editors are personal cars users? Hmm.. OK, comments follow:

Why don't you do a little research on the relationship between street vendors and the other party in the "conspiracy", namely state apparatus. See who's the "dictator" now?

It's time to make a rule, for example every mall should provide space for street vendors.

What I heard is: there already is such rule. But many mall developers would rather give money to the government (legally, that is), instead of providing space for the informal sector in their property. It's similar to the 1:3:6 rule for housing developers (for every high-income housing unit built, a developer should develop 3 middle-income units, and 6 low-income units). Many high-income housing developers would also rather give money to the government rather than build middle and low-income housing themselves. But do we see enough economic space and life space for the poor in the city? So, in whose hands does the problem lie in now?

technorati tags: public-space, cities, politics

The cost of freedom (apparently not that expensive)

2006-08-28T11:59:00.000+07:00

How much money do you think you have to own (or is 'enough') to enable you to be 'free'? For Indra, an ex-taxi driver in Jakarta, it's 11 million rupiahs (~ USD 1,200). [Some of you may be saying... "hey, I have that kind of money!"]

Indra's story was told by Martinus, another taxi driver from the same company, whose taxi I rode in yesterday.

Martinus told that Indra is a fine, honest, very-likeable man. One day, a drunk got in to Indra's taxi and left a small luggage on the backseat. Later, Indra opened the luggage to look for an address or telephone number. He found it alright, but to his amazement, he also found 300 million rupiahs (~ USD 33,300) of cash. Being an honest person, Indra gave the luggage to the taxi 's management. The management then called the person who lost the luggage. In short, the person came, claimed his luggage, (maybe gave some money to the management), and gave 11 million rupiahs to Indra.

Indra was happy as hell. He immediately said goodbye to Jakarta, returned to his village in Kabupaten Semarang, and opened up a restaurant. Today (3-4 years later), he'd sometimes come to Jakarta to see his old cabby mates and tell stories of his successful restaurant and happy life. Sometimes he'd give money to those who are needing it.

Martinus was 'honest' as well. He told me, "if I found that kind of cash left on my backseat, I wouldn't give it to the management. I'd return the taxi to its pool, say goodbye to my cabby mates, and run away with the money."

"And what would you do?" I asked.

"I'd return to my village in the Kupang area (in NTT), and open a restaurant as well. My wife is a great cook!"

Hmm...
Wouldn't you be interested to know how many people are actually living & working in big cities ONLY because they have no other choice? Despite all the talk of how great cities are, its important role in the economy, and how we should support villagers/the poor who want to come to the city (and I do believe in these), it's heartwarming to hear stories like Indra's and Martinus'. They make me think again, and again: "am I doing /promoting the right thing?" They keep me in praxis.

technorati tags: cities, urban, freedom

In Defense of Ghost-blogging

2006-08-25T07:00:00.000+07:00

A. Fatih Syuhud criticizes those who blog anonymously (apparently this is not the first time). I think there are many legitimate reasons to support those who chose to "ghost blog." Unfortunately, only one seem to be acknowledged by Fatih: security.

So I'm putting forward three points (not in order of importance) to refute his argument.

First point: about authority. What makes the Internet (including blogging) interesting for many people is that there are very few rules. For the large part, the Internet is (still) a free world. Sure there are ethics, but I think they should be applied forcefully only to issues that are damaging (such as spam), not issues such as "linking back," as Fatih said here:

this is one of unwritten conventional rule in blogger world: whenever someone link your blog, you're obliged to link it back.

Since when is blogging full of "rules" and "obligations"? Conventions, maybe. Consider this: saying "thank you" is not common in many Indonesian villages (unless you actually give them something), but we'd more likely get a smile or a nod instead. Or, my Japanese friend told me that there is no "please" in Japanese language. Or, I had a hard time finding the Javanese expression for "excuse me."

Second point: about Narcisism. I'm NOT apposed to it, but isn't that a bias in itself? Delicate, Delightful, Delicious said (my own translation):

People say, welcome to the era of narcisism. This saying refers to blogs and their increasing quantity and popularity.

Fatih is acknowledging this just fine, by saying

Indonesian bloggers tend to make their blogs and their names known in the google world and are proud to see their traffic achieves PG (page ranking) four plus. ...

I hardly found any Indonesian bloggers whose pictures, true full names and CVs are not attached in their blogs.

And this:

blogger is an ego-driven medium, a self-publishing means and a self-satisfying "lust" of own-self existence. Let's be honest about it.

I agree, to a certain extent. But I think your statements may be pushing it too far (they don't apply to everyone). And some bloggers may NOT like to hear that blogging is identical with narcisism.

Third point, let me support nad's note on the issue of objectivity. As Nad wrote, there are two opinions on objectivity:

1. a work cannot possibly have been made in void and thus better understanding can derive from understanding and knowledge of the background of the very person behind the work itself.

2. the work itself should be the main focus of attention. Once a work is released to public domain, it thus becomes public and its interpretation therefore rests with the eyes of each beholder.

Let me ask Fatih: If you knew beforehand that a post is written by an anonymous foreign blogger, then would you view it "differently" than a post written in the same tone by an open-identity Indonesian?

If such post is critical of Indonesia, then would you think that the former is objective and credible, while the latter is biased? If such post is critical of the foreigner's country of origin, then would you think that the foreigner is objective, and the Indonesian is biased?

We can apply this to many things: nationality, religion, gender, what have you. The truth is, not every person is a fundamentalist. I am a Muslim, but at certain times I can be very critical of other Muslims, and other times supportive. Why? Because another part of me is liberal, and another part socialist, etc., which may - sometimes - contradict with Islam. I am pro marginal communities, though I come from a well-off family. I work in a field that champions the use of ICT and hails "the death of geography," but is a fan of urban studies and learned that geography/space is still alive and kicking (ICT even makes geography more important than ever!). I'm sure I'm not the only one who lives with inner contradictions.

I'm sure Fatih means well. But hope this contributes to keeping the internet and blogging a free world.

To Be a Tax Payer in Indonesia

2006-08-23T16:47:00.000+07:00

Triggered by the Tax Department's slogan: "wise people pay taxes," I've finally decided that I'm going to get an NPWP (taxpayer identification number), start paying my income tax, and be a wise guy.

(okay, I'm lying. I did a gig for some agency early this year, and a month ago the agency's head told me that he needs to include my NPWP and a copy of my ID card for reporting purposes. Hehe... not so wise after all!)

But anyways, I HAVE been thinking about getting a proper NPWP for a while now. It was James Surowiecki's book, "The Wisdom of Crowds," that really triggered me. Being a fan of the Vicious/Virtuous Circle theory, I immediately bought in to Surowiecki's thought: If enough people pay taxes, then more will follow. If NOT enough people pay them, then eventually those who pay will stop paying altogether. No one wants to be the odd dufus who pays taxes while most other people who don't can get away easily.

Someone then told me, "It's easy to get an NPWP. It won't take you a day at the tax office."

"Okay," I thought excitedly, "I want to be one of the dufuses that lead the way for change." Viva pioneer dufuses! So today I went to the Tax Office of City of East Jakarta.

It turned out that to apply for an NPWP, I have to include a Letter of Business Location (Surat Keterangan Domisili Usaha).

"But my business does NOT have a location." I told the nice lady. "I go and work wherever an employer would need me to work." She told me because I'm applying for a personal NPWP, in administrative terms that would be equivalent as if I'm working from home.

"So how do I get a Surat Keterangan Domisili Usaha?" She told me that I'd have to go to my village/kelurahan office to get one.

Okay. Since I thought this is one day that I've put aside to deal with this business, so happily I head towards my village office. But after getting off the bus at the main road, and walking about 500 meters on a small road in the glaring sun, I found that the office is being torned down. There's nothing but debris!

"The office is being redeveloped," said the man in the warung next door. To go to the temporary office, I have to walk back 500 meters in the glaring sun and catch another bus. There was no sign whatsoever at the main road that the village office is not at the usual place anymore!

Finally I met the Lurah (village head), and he said there are several documents that I need to prepare to apply for that.

An endorsement letter from my RT and RW (the small and larger neighborhood units that makes up a Village)
A copy of my home's land certificate
A copy of my home's latest building tax (PBB) receipt.
And of course, a copy of my ID card and Family Card (KK)

You see, RWs and RTs are quasi-formal entities. There IS a head of RW and a head RT (from whom I must have letters of endorsements), but no one is really holding the posts full-time, and there are no RW and RT offices. So the heads "work" from their homes, in their "spare time." Which means I have to come knock on their home doors later in the evening to ask for the letter.

Hmm... It turned out that getting an NPWP is not a one-day-done business after all. I don't know, maybe after I've collected all the needed documents, then it will be a very fast process at the East Jakarta Tax Office. But we'll see. I'll update you on the process.

***

In the evening, after going to my RT for the letter, I realized that, "Hey, doesn't the Tax Department now has an online facility?" And surely there it is. The site actually has an "e-registration" page! But can I actually do this all online?

So I filled out all of the forms, and in the end. This note appears:

"Thanks for applying. Please print these documents, and send it with other requirements to your tax office. Requirements:
- Copy of ID card
- Letter of business location."

There it is. The instruction. Right at the end of my day. Still, I need to go to the RT and RW, and Kelurahan, and then I can send the documents to the tax office. Hey, that's saving one out of four trips. Not bad, for a newbie country in ICT application. If only I had checked the web first!

technorati tags: Indonesia

A universalist reflection on Indonesia’s independence

2006-08-19T02:37:00.000+07:00

During my college years, Indonesia's independence day celebration every August 17^th was always coupled with ITB students rallying to say that "we're NOT really independent." Of course, those were the days of Suharto; and they were criticizing Suharto's regime. Now, after ten or so years have passed, what does independence day mean to me? Apparently I've put less weight on nationalism, and more weight on independence as a prerequisite for interdependence.

Why do many people think nationalism is so important? When I was in L.A., independence day celebrations at the Consulate were often coupled by protests by the pro-independence Mollucans and Papuans. I also remember participating in an AMARC conference in Jakarta last year, where a participant from Timor Leste explained how proud she was of Timor Leste's independence from Indonesia. Whereas in Indonesia, so-called nationalists raged about Timor Timur’s break-out. Can nationalism hurt? Apparently so.

I am NOT an advocate of disintegration. But if a certain people think they can live better off by themselves, and not beneath another's wings, then why not? Who are we to say that they should be a part of us when the feeling's not mutual? Nationalism is a state of mind. Anderson said that it's "imagined." After Indonesia gained independence, Sukarno had to work hard to build the nation. And to a large extent, he was successful. But time moves on, leaders change, policies change, distribution of wealth gets to be unfair, and administration corrupts. Who is then to blame for the thinning of Indonesia's nationalism? Nationalism, as a state of mind, should be earned, not imposed on.

Why am I so lenient on nationalism?

because I believe today is the era of interdependence, not independence. However, to be interdependent, each and every component involved must be essentially independent (this is from Covey, and often reminded to me by my friend Alex Lai). I think Indonesia (as a region) and any other region in the world would work better with the principle of interdependence. To achieve this, if some areas feel that they need to have their independence first, then be it. Any area that breaks out from Indonesia (given the break-out was peaceful and left no grudge) would eventually need to cooperate with Indonesia. In the end, they would still be a part of "us," just wearing a different "jacket."
because first and foremost I care about the people, then secondly, the country. Humanism, brotherhood, sisterhood, or whatever word fits this concept, is universal; it knows no boundaries.

Having said that, independence (aka freedom) has its own virtues. Amartya Sen said that this should be the core of "development" (Development as Freedom). Sick of enomomics-oriented developmentalists putting too much emphasis on economic growth as the core of development, Sen rebutted by saying that the goal and the means of development should be five freedoms:

political freedoms
social facilities
economic opportunities
transparency guarantees
protective security

By achieving one type of freedom, we increase our chances of achieving another. In essence, these freedoms enable people "to live a life that they value, and not a life that others value." Unfortunately, as Enda pointed out, for the poor, there are obstructions to achieve these freedoms. Thus the poor face unfreedoms which need to be removed.

So this weekend, I celebrate Indonesia's independence day to remind me how:

I am proud to be a part of the Indonesian people
I, as an Indonesian citizen, knowingly or unknowingly, may impose unfreedoms on other peoples, and I am sorry for that
many people of the world are still facing tremendous unfreedoms, maybe not so much because of their nationality, but more likely because of their race, class, gender, and religion. If these people form a nation, then that’s the “nation” I want to be associated with
by enabling people to achieve freedoms, they can live a life that really matters to them, based on their own standards and measures. Then, together we can build an interdependent relationship that's genuine and long-lasting.

technorati tags: politics, opinion, development

Low Income Flats: More Polemics

2006-08-18T12:57:00.000+07:00

Ever since Jusuf Kalla's statement, low-income vertical housing (flats) are gaining attention. Jakarta's Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo rebutted the VP's call to build 20-storey flats in all cities with more than 2 million. He said, "to build flats we need a wide area. We just don't have that kind of land in the middle of the city." Fathi R Shidiq from the Parliament exacerbated the logic of this whole argument by saying "if the government forces its will to build low-income flats in the middle of the city, then get ready to confront the urban poor."

What interesting statements. Here's my response:

To Mr. Bowo: Isn't vertical housing invented as a solution to the issue of land shortage? Your reason to disagree with flats is all the more reason to build it.
To Mr. Shidiq: Won't these flats be built FOR the urban poor? If they can still stay in the same strategic area of the city, with secure tenure, then why should they oppose it? Unless you're saying that usually what happens is that the poor previously living in the area get evicted, and that the flats in the end are occupied by the middle class...

It seems like building these flats is not as simple as the VP may have thought, eh?

PS:
1) Pak Darrundono, in another article, provided the more institutional and cultural challenges of flats provision. These include such flats being too product oriented, too expensive, exclusive to the private sector and tenants, weak on management, opposes the principle of government as "enabler," transplanted into Indonesia from other cultures, are difficult to accept by the low-income population since to live in such flats, hey have to undergo a sudden change of culture.
2) Another article profiles Jakarta's attempt to redevelop the Pulomas flats in Jakarta into a middle class settlement.
3) Photo above portrays the chaotic utility (water) pipes in the Penjaringan Flats.

technorati tags: settlements, cities, urban

Hate Cartoons and Double-standards

2006-08-18T12:41:00.000+07:00

An international cartoon exhibition on the hollocaust is being conducted at a museum in Tehran, Iran. Republika reported that the event is to get even at "the West" for the Muhammad cartoons on the Danish daily Jyland-Posten, or at least to challenge the double standard applied to free speech when dealing with religious issues.

Earlier this year (shortly after the Muhammad cartoons), Saskia Sassen wrote that in a time of war, "free speech" is a contested issue. Indeed, this condition has made us brought in to "a new frontier-zone."

Frontier-zones are spaces of imbrication. They are not lines where civilisations clash. They are areas of hybridity. What liberal democracies are experiencing is the limits of their closure and of the presumption that the world should like the way they look.

So what are the boundaries of "free speech" and "hate speech"? Even in the U.S., these boundaries have been defined only recently, and "through struggle." Still, double standards apply. Masoud Shojai, head of the Iranian Cartoonist Association said, "They can write whatever they please about our Prophet (Muhammad, PBUH). But when one person questioned about the Hollocaust, they are fined, even imprisoned." Republika reported that David Irving, an English historian, and Frederick Toben, an Australian hostorian, have had to stay in the cells for being skeptical about the hollocaust.

Many discussions about this issue, such as shown here, just proves that a particular issue may be a laughing matter for one person (a "light" issue), while at the same time it's hurtful (a "serious" issue) for another person.

For me, intentionally hurting anyone's feelings and beliefs (not just in terms of religion, but also race, gender, etc) is a mean act. In this case, I consider the anti-Islam, anti-Semit, anti-gay, white supremacists, and other fundamentalists mean. But imposing a double standard to cover one's own fundamentalism, that's hypocricy, and it may well be meaner.

technorati tags: opinion, politics

On Local wisdoms

2006-08-16T13:55:00.000+07:00

The best take on local wisdoms I've read lately comes from the arts scene.

Last Sunday, Kompas featured Sardono Kusumo, a well-respected Indonesian dancer. Sardono re-examined (or rather 'day-dreamed'/ngelamun) about Indonesia's geographic position in the Pacific Ring of Fire and what it means for its civilization. He thought that the term "tanah air" (literally meaning "soil and water"), that Sukarno coined as a loose alternative for the word "country," does not only signify the conceptual, but also the real.

During the era of classic Indonesian kingdoms, the locations of these kingdoms move about, probably due to earthquake and tsunami impacts. The partly-destructed and burried condition of Borobudur and Prambanan temples at the time they were founded by the Dutch may also strengthen this hypothesis. The term "tanah air" thus may have been a call to Indonesia to give proper attention to its soil and water, as her life depends much on them.

In that case, should (Indonesian) modernity be redefined?

"Yes, because much (of it) contradicts the character of where we build lives with such soil and water."

Sardono's picture taken from Asialink, Univ. of Melbourne.

In another article, the daily profiled an exhibition titled "Understanding Merapi," in which the Merapi Community calls for better understanding of the different perceptions when dealing with the volcano.

For thousands of years harmony has been created between the Merapi community and the volcano through a mutual way of life. The people gain their livelihood from Merapi and, in turn, the mountain's nature is preserved by the people. This bond between human and nature was destructed during the evacuation phases. The sensitivity of people's intuition were put aside because they were considered irrational.

This quote reminded me of one of my favorite books, Staying Alive, by Vandana Shiva. Here Shiva said that modernism and its brain-child, "development," has largely destructed nature, and marginalized women's ways of knowing, such as through intuition and story-telling, and replaced them with the so-called rationality.

technorati tags: community, development, local-wisdoms

When Indonesia's VP and Jakarta's Governor Exchange Statements about Low-income Flats

2006-08-13T00:04:00.000+07:00

Yusuf Kalla was again premature, while Sutiyoso was again ignorant. This is my conclusion from reading Kompas's article, titled "Vice President: Cities with 2 Million (population) has to Build Low-income Flats."

After visiting the Cengkareng flats, Kalla said that in the city flats have to be at least 20 storeys tall, using lifts. He said, "the money can be from outside the country. Repayment is not a difficult issue, since it is a sure thing."

Okay, I get what he meant. But really, the issue is not that easy. Maybe our VP should read two of my previous posts, here and here. There ARE problems with repayment. A major one. So giving out statements like that was certainly premature.

Whereas Sutiyoso, interestingly, after explaining several areas in Jakarta where flats will be made, washed his hands off the issue by saying that the funds (to build) is impossible to come from the Jakarta municipality, "because, the people who come and live in the low-income flats come from the regions" (therefore not a Jakarta citizen, therefore none of his business).

Doesn't he know that these "orang daerah" (regional/village people who come to cities) are what makes a city competitive? Without them, it would be at least twice as expensive to buy food, to have a hair cut, to have our shoes shined, etc. Then, employers would have to pay higher wages for people working in Jakarta. If so, these employers would have to look for other alternative cities to invest in: those which offer cheaper services and labor.

This kind of attitude towards the urban working poor shows how the Governor of Jakarta is ignorant as to how a city's economy works.

technorati tags: settlements, cities

Kompas: Sulak Sivaraksa on development and buddhism with a 'b'

2006-08-12T23:36:00.000+07:00

Last week, Kompas featured an inspiring interview with Sulak Sivaraksa, a complete individual, playing various roles simultaneously. Or as Kompas puts it: a "philosopher, spiritualist, activist, social critique, and intellectual rebel, holding firmly to the Buddhist non-violence ethics," who has for many years become a "professional" pain for the Thai government.

Here are some quotes from the interview (my own translation):

As long as development is measured by material success, greed will continue to create tension, conflict, and humans will keep fighting for profit by hurting each other.

"We are pressured to satisfy our wants by buying, buying, owning, owning, and owning more. 'To own' becomes more important than 'to be'. Consumptivism has exploited the mind and body of the young generation."

The modern education system within capitalism produces cleverness without wisdom. "The values of education no longer love goodness, but competition." And in competition, people don't only face each other, but also nature.

"We should practice buddhism with the letter 'b', love life, peace, and reject violence."

And this is my favorite one, put at the end of the article:

"Life is fun, you know..."

I hear you, Acharn (teacher) Sulak.

technorati tags: development, happiness

A plea from two diaster affected communities to help one another

2006-08-11T16:46:00.000+07:00

The slow and tiring eruption of Mount Merapi seems to bring more impacts on the local community than many people realize. Some of the more important ones include lack of water, destruction of crops, and inability to plant - due to heavy ash coverage.

Two days ago, Sukiman, a community leader in the dusun of Deles, said that replanting (after current crops have been destroyed) will have to be held back until the rainy season starts. Given the weird weather condition in Indonesia nowadays, who knows when this will start. In the past it's been from October until April. This means the farming community will have no work and income for at least 4 months.

As for water, many wells and springs have been covered by ash so bad that it's impossible to extract clean water. Many communities in the Merapi slope now have to buy water. A 5,000 Liter container of water costs Rp 125,000 (USD 12.5), and a family (including their livestock!) can consume this for a maximum of ten days. This means an additional expenditure of 1.25 dollars a day per family. Quite significant.

So what can we do to help them? Simple. Let them help their fellow communities in Southern Yogyakarta and Klaten, whose houses were destroyed by the May 27th earthquake.

How so?
The Merapi community has access to an almost endless supply of bamboo. And the community members are experts in constructing a bamboo house. Twelve bamboo poles as posts, combined with walls made of bamboo sheets, and tin roofs, then we'd have a 4 by 6 meter temporary house that can last at least 4 years. Once the materials have been prepared, one Merapi resident can assemble an average of two houses per day. After we calculated the costs to gather and prepare materials, transport, and assembly, one house would cost about Rp 1.8 million (USD 180). Complete, all-in.

If someone is smart enough to allocate resources for this, then these are the benefits:

Better social cohesion between the Merapi volcano community (majority farmers) and the communities affected by the earthquake (many craftmakers, farmers, and urban day workers)
Communities affected by the earthquake will immediately be able to produce again, once they have a stable shelter.
Communities affected by the volcano will be able to have funds/capital to replant again.

A three-in-one deal. Anyone interested?

PS: First photo taken from Jalin Merapi. Second photo from Saksigempa.

technorati tags: community, settlements, empowerment

Optimism for Pekalongan and Solo

2006-07-30T17:01:00.000+07:00

I don’t get to visit Mayors often, but last week was a special week, so we visited two. And what excitement and optimism did they bring me!

Our visit to the Mayor of Pekalongan (a city of 270,000 people on the northern shore of Central Java) was triggered by his commitment to improve sub-standard housing (‘slums’). Mayor Moh. Basyir Ahmad, who previously worked as a medical doctor, found that many health problems are caused by unhealthy living conditions. So this year Pekalongan has started programs to upgrade 250 houses. Next year it will be 850 houses, and the following year 1,500. He said specifically to us: “We need knowledge, not funds.”

Pekalongan is well known for its home-based fine Batik industry. (pic source here)

Nothing special there yet. But it’s encouraging that Mr. Basyir cited the Human Development Index (HDI) as a major factor in designing his programmes. The head (Bupati) of Jembrana district in Bali is also leading pro-poor programmes based on HDI, and Jembrana’s success is now promoted all over the country. [See a handbook on 'how to be like Jembrana', also read reviews here and here]

Our visit to the second city, Solo (officially known as Surakarta – in the centre of Central Java), is no less encouraging. Mr. Jokowi, who’s left his furniture export business to become Mayor, was with us for almost the whole day, as he took us around the city to show how he dealt with the informal traders ‘issue.’

Solo is often considered the source of 'finer' Javanese culture. They have a wayang puppet-mastering depertment (Jurusan Pedalangan) in STSI - Surakarta Art Institute.

Just 5 days before our visit, 1,000 informal traders conduct business on the public parks around Banjarsari Monument. Now they’ve all moved to a newly built Notoharjo ‘klithikan’ market in an area called Semanggi, which is still located in the business area of the city. The Mayor spent the last 9 months negotiating with traders associations, and came out with a deal like this: each trader would get a lot in the market, and he/she would have it free of rent and taxes for the upcoming 6 months. Each would also receive 5 million rupiahs (~500 USD) of soft loan as business capital. The Mayor expected that the new market will have return of investment in 8-9 years. After traders moved to the new market just 4 days before, we saw that the market is already bustling. Now that the monument is back on public hands, the Mayor is refurbishing the old monument for the upcoming Independence Day celebration in mid August. [read reviews from Kompas and Jawa Pos]

Maybe we should encourage more medical doctors (the Bupati of Jembrana is also one!) and entrepreneurs to be Mayors? :) Or what about Faisal Basri as Governor of Jakarta?

technorati tags: cities, development, settlements, politics

Problems with Low-income Housing Mortgage

2006-07-30T14:43:00.000+07:00

Last week we went to three banks, BRI, BTN, and Bukopin, to see the possibility of them providing finance for low-income housing. BRI has heavy emphasis on financing small and micro businesses, BTN on housing/property mortgages, and Bukopin on cooperatives.

Here are several issues discussed:

A bank complained that the government doesn’t have vision on how we should deal comprehensively with the problem of low-income housing needs, while many local governments are only interested in projects from which they can take advantage.
They also said it may be interested in financing such projects if the government provides two things: legal land titles (new, large quantities of subdivided land), with basic infrastructure (the most important being roads, electricity, and water)
Another bank raised the issue of insurance/guarantee funds and control over subletting.
They said they can provide financing for corporation/enterprise’s workers housing, and for ‘solid cooperatives’ (which they need assess first).
Another bank complained about the lack of legal enforcement for those who default. They said that there have been too many cases where if someone is allowed to stop payment, then others will join.

My conclusion so far is that there is a possibility of mobilizing commercial banks to play a role in upgrading and preventing slums. However, the government will need to play an important role in providing the right incentives (not everything can be privatized, of course!). Also, there needs to be better management: both for the community institutions/cooperatives who apply for housing loans, and for the people who manage and maintain such developments.

technorati tags: slums, settlements, cities

Problems with Supply-driven Low-income Flats

2006-07-30T13:21:00.000+07:00

The organization for which I’m currently consulting believes that low-income housing development should be in the private domain. It’s how things are done normally. The government can provide public housings, but to what extent? And what have been the outcomes of such housing built and managed by the government?

Karet Tengsin flats in Central Jakarta. You can see the pointy BNI Tower faintly in the background.

Penjaringan flats in North Jakarta, by the industrial/warehouses. Some have dubbed this a 'vertical slum.'

Let’s look at a couple of low-income flats built and managed by the Jakarta municipality: one in Karet Tengsin, Central Jakarta, and the other in Penjaringan, North Jakarta. In both cases there’s a significant subsidy from the municipality: only one-third of flat costs are to be paid by residents (12 out of 36 million Rupiahs in 10 years – which is dirt cheap). However, a swooping 60% of them have stopped repayment. The rent price still refers to the 1988 Governor’s decree (1,200 to 7,200 Rupiahs – 13 cents to 80 cents – a day!), but residents have constantly protested (demonstrated) every time there’s a plan to increase rents. They also don’t pay utility bills. And worse, the intended target group does not live there anymore; they’ve sublet the flats to those better off, for money of course. And now the flats have somewhat turned into ‘vertical slums.’

Out of frustration, the municipality owned company P.D. Pembangunan Sarana Jaya will return management rights of some of the flats to the municipality (Dinas Perumahan).

Does the main problem lie in management, or in the concept of social housing in the first place? The Jakarta municipality is planning to extend the flats in Karet Tengsin (actually this has recently started) and redevelop those in Penjaringan. For the latter case, costs are estimated between 48 and 64 million USD (depending on the alternative designs). However, the municipality only has 20 million. So how can they effectively serve the increasing housing needs of low-income households inside the city?

Using the approach I mentioned at the beginning, one way to deal with the problem is mobilizing domestic capital (funds from the residents, community groups, and domestic commercial banks) to finance low-income housing development. As has been well documented, the poor actually has money to pay (for example, those living in slums pay more for water than their richer counterparts living in formal areas of the city). Not only that, in many cases the poor are more prudent in repaying loans (for example, see the performance of micro credits).

So why can’t we mobilize these funds (especially banks) to provide financing for such activities? Answer in following post.

technorati tags: slums, settlements, cities

Endogenous and Genuine Development

2006-07-24T09:17:00.000+07:00

It was such a thrill for me to finally see and listen to John Friedmann in person deliver a speech last month. The urban planning guru received the 2006 UN-HABITAT Award and gave the jam-packed inaugural UN-HABITAT lecture at the World Urban Forum in Vancouver. Having read some of his books (Planning in the Public Domain comes first to mind) passionately, and studied at the department that he founded and chaired for 14 years, I was so eager to hear what he has to say for today’s context.

Friedmann’s speech, titled The Wealth of Cities: Towards an assets-based development of urbanizing regions, was the ultimate progressive’s answer as to how cities should (choose to) develop amidst all the pressure “to make themselves into commodities for the capital market” and “to frustrate themselves to the power of global capital.” He said all this is useless as “when capital finds more attractive regions, they will leave the city, leaving abandoned factories…” Friedmann therefore argued for “endogenous, genuine development.”

And how should endogenous growth be done? Friedmann provided 7 clusters of regional assets into which local governments must invest:

Human assets: encompassing those that support a person’s right to live: housing, education, health
Social assets: civil society – or the bonds that tie people together, be it via religion, sport, music, hobby, what have you.
Cultural assets: includes physical heritage such as buildings and places, but also those of “everyday life vibrancy,” including popular traditions and festive occasions.
Intellectual & creative assets: intellectuality and creativity must be nurtured; there has to be “a freedom to create;” “creativity can’t be commanded, but creative work must have public support.”
Natural assets: including forests, rivers, and the urban fringe. The city needs them as they are part of the urban as well (Friedmann’s words were “where does the city end and the countryside begin?”)
Environmental assets: conditions/things that make living in the city bearable physically, such quality of water, air, space.
Urban infrastructure assets: including urban transportation and utilities. The question is whether to invest in infrastructures of the rich minority (the 15% automobile class) or the poor(er) majority (the 80% transit and walking class). [note: I’m not sure to which city Friedmann was referencing these numbers, but you get the point]

After all these years, Friedmann is still the progressive planner. I can totally relate to his current ideas through his old writings. His argument slaps the faces of cities competing with each other to host the Olympics and attract foreign investments. The assets are not "out there" to compete for, but within a city/region all along…

technorati tags: cities, development, urban, political-economy

Less Life Space, More Economic Space

2006-07-14T19:39:00.000+07:00

Jakarta's new spatial planning blueprint will provide more "prospective economic areas" and less green and open space. The blueprint has attracted criticisms from independent urban planning experts.

Already losing its citizens to the suburbs, Jakarta still needs to learn that life in the city is not all about economic activities. Even if we put the economy high up on the priority scale, such activities depend on opportunities for recreation. Furthermore, much of Jakarta's economy depends on the informal sector: the low-income folks who privide lunch for the city's middle class everyday. These people and activities need space in order to play the important role of supporting the city's economy.

Bianpoen said, "The city plan lacks social justice as it continuously evicts the poor to make way for the rich elite." I'd say, the government lacks vision as evicting the poor will eventually mean suicide for the rich elite.

PS: The title is inspired from John Friedmann's book, Life Space and Economic Space. I'll write more about the urban planning guru later.

technorati tags: urban, regionalism, development

"Trade on Human Terms"

2006-07-07T14:24:00.000+07:00

UNDP admits that "free trade will not embrace the poor unless countries pursue a bold new policy agenda harnessing economic growth to
promote human development."

To deal with this issue, eight recommendations are then given:
1. Invest in competitiveness
2. Adopt strategic trade policies
3. Restore a focus on agriculture
4. Combat jobless growth
5. Prepare a new tax regime
6. Maintain Stable Exchange Rates
7. Persist with Multi-lateralism
8. Cooperate with Neighbors.

The UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Human Development Report 2006 is titled "Trade on Human Terms" and can be downloaded from here.

technorati tags: development, political-economy, trade

Philippine community radio burnt down

2006-07-07T13:41:00.000+07:00

AMARC deplores the burning down of Community Radio Station dwRC 90.1 FM Radyo Cagayano in the Philippines

Kathmandu, July 6, 2006 The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) condemns the burning down of Radio Cagayano dwRC 90.1 FM in the Cagayan province of the Philippines. Speaking at a press conference in Quezon City, Ms. Bianca Miglioretto, Vice President of the Women’s International Network and Board Member AMARC Asia Pacific expressed grave concern over the incident. “Community radio is one way of giving a voice to the voiceless. If this voice is taken away by burning the people’s community radio station, it is a grave violation of their right to communicate,” she said. “We will start a campaign of protest to pressure the Philippine government to give justice to the people of Radyo Cagayano,” she added.

On July 2, 2006 about 2 o’clock in the morning eight men wearing ski-masks and armed burnt down the radio station using gasoline (petrol) in big bottled water containers which they poured over the equipment and the structure before setting it afire. The arsonists, some of them wearing combat boots, military type fatigues and divers’ watch often used by the Philippine military were also armed with M-16 armalite assault rifles and 45 caliber handguns. They used ropes to hogtie the victims and articles of clothing to gag them. The radio station employees suspect the perpetrators to be members of the 17th Infantry Battalion of the 5th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army. The 17th IB is headquartered near the incident site with the 5th ID is station at Gamu, Isabela Province.

The building was totally razed to the ground, including all the pieces of equipment therein. The black draft created by the flames also severely injured Joy Marcos, a staff of the station, on his face, and Arlyn Arella and Armalyn Baddua, also staffs of the station, on their feet and legs. Another staff Richard Ayudad was bruised on his neck where the perpetrators poked it with a handgun. The arsonists also took all of their mobile phone units.

The incidents of attack over free media in the Philippines have grown dramatically over the past few years, especially since Gloria Macapagal Arroyo became President in February 2001. Since then 42 journalists have been murdered, which amounts to 80 the number of journalists killed after the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos (1986). AMARC calls upon the President and the Government of the Philippines to put an end over the oppression of freedom of expression in that country with immediate effect. AMARC also calls upon the government of the Philippines to reimburse the losses suffered by Radio Cagayano due to the attack and bring to justice the arsonists.

For more information, please go to www.asiapacific.amarc.org or contact: Suman Basnet, Regional Coordinator AMARC Asia Pacific, Kathmandu, Nepal. Email: suman@wlink.com.np

technorati tags: ICT-for-development, political-economy

On the lookout for "Second Cities"

2006-07-05T17:30:00.000+07:00

Newsweek International Edition has a special report on the world's most recent urban trends, titled the World's 10 Hottest Cities. The report puts the current buzz of "more than half of the world's population live in urban areas" into more solid & balanced context .

The report's introduction, Unlikely Boomtowns, argues that the biggest waves of people will no longer be moving towards the world's biggest cities (New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, etc), but to "second cities." It is THESE dynamic "second cities" which will be "hot" in the coming years: Fukuoka, Toulouse, Ghaziabad, Nanchang, etc. So be on the lookout for them.

Another interesting article says that even birds, animals, and plants are moving into cities! With the current rate of deforestation, pesticide usage, and monoculture, more squirrels are to be found per kilometer square in urban areas than in rural areas.

In another article, Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, reminds us that it's not cities, nor nations, that are growing, but rather urban corridors - or regions.

The special report features a score of other interesting articles.

technorati tags: cities, urban, regionalism, geography

Less race, more class (a 4th of July post)

2006-07-04T17:27:00.000+07:00

Marcellus Andrews says that African Americans' economic plight is less caused by racism, and more by modern-capitalism. And in capitalism, "poor men of all colors and conditions are economically disposable."

For Andrews, Blacks face a tough condition because:

the end of the American segregation system a half century ago put black people onto the blue-collar road to the middle class just when the on-ramp shut down. In the mid-1970s, the country de-industrialized. American companies off-shored steel, stopped building ships and, gradually, autos too.

OK, this is a bit exaggerating. But the point is: at that time there was not as much need for cheap, unskilled labor as before. The whites have already passed through the blue-collar road and became the middle class. The blacks are left in the hole.

Children from modest circumstance faced either low-wage work or no work at all. Just look at the fate of poorly educated immigrants today. Their influx is simply changing the color of surplus males from black to brown. The sad fact remains that America doesn't seen to care about giving these people the tools and fighting chance to help themselves.

Happy 4th of July, United States of America!

Ode to Times Square and people's right to the city

2006-07-04T02:13:00.000+07:00

Marshall Berman, a Marxist-humanist and urbanism professor, has a new book that celebrates One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square. Dissent has a good essay which is excerpted and adapted from the book here.

The essay, while entertaining and insightful, is quite long. What interests me most is the last part (scroll down to the section titled Epilogue: Reuters and Me), where Berman got thrown off the sidewalk in front of the Reuters building in Times Square, probably because he didn't look appropriate. Here're some of his thoughts:

What has made Times Square special for a century is that, to a remarkable extent, it really did belong to everybody. It enveloped the whole world in its spectacle of bright lights; it gave everybody a thrill; it was a trip where the whole world could cruise. ... the people look great, the lights look great; so I let it be, until the day one of these global corporations touched me, and told me I wasn’t allowed to stand on the street on Forty-Second Street and Broadway.

Where did these guys get the idea that they own the street? How many more of the Square’s new corporate giants share this belief? And how did they get it? ...

As I close, there are two big ideas to sign. The first big idea, which goes back to the start of the Enlightenment, is that the right to the city is a basic human right. The second, flowing from the first, is the right to be part of the city spectacle. This spectacle is as old, and as modern, as the city itself.

Pic of Reuters building in Times Square was taken from davetravel.scripting.com

Happiness, part 3 (now sex is in the picture!)

2006-07-04T00:39:00.000+07:00

Apparently happiness is a hot topic these days!

Today's LA Times says that increasing sex from once a month, to once a week, is equivalent to $50,000 annual salary increase.

(tip via IM discussion with my shinyuu, Yoh)

technorati tags: happiness, development, poverty

What's with our hype about Arabian tourists?

2006-07-03T10:59:00.000+07:00

Indonesia is expecting a two-fold increase of Arabian tourists. Why? I'm not so sure. But one thing certain: this hype has attracted our Vice President to make a "sensitive" remark about Indonesia's informal sex industry, although he clarified it here.

A couple of months back, an UGM economics professor delived a speech in Jakarta about how to lure Arabian tourists into the country. Although the rationale given by the organizer seemed pretty clear: Indonesia is a "Muslim" country, and there are a lot of "Islamic" historic sites which should be interesting for muslim tourists, such as Sunan Kalijaga's tomb and what not, the professor is not convinced.

In the airport, where we met, he said:
1) "To Arabs, Indonesians are their domestics, their housekeepers. I, for one, would not be interested in visiting my housekeeper's village out in the countryside..."
2) "What's more interesting for many Arabian tourists is the sex and gambling industry, and Indonesia is not very attractive in that sense."

Sex and gambling seem to be more interesting to many tourists than religious sites. And it seems that our VP understands this pretty well. However, being "Indonesian", he'll have to be more careful about remarks he makes in public.

Another cash-handout unrest

2006-07-02T11:48:00.000+07:00

Late last week, due to unfair distribution of "living cost," hundreds of people in post-earthquake Jogja area raged and damaged a kecamatan office in Sleman.

It seems to me that our government REFUSES to learn. They keep using the seemingly politically-smart cash hand-out strategy (which since the late 1990s have taken several names, ranging from Jaring Pengaman Sosial, Bantuan Langsung Tunai, "Jatah Hidup", and now "Living Cost"), but always bumping into social unrest.

Education as scam

2006-07-02T10:53:00.000+07:00

Roem Topatimasang said that school is opium (Sekolah itu Candu). John Taylor Gatto, however, brings it up a notch by arguing that the whole US education system is a scam, "designed to keep us uneducated and docile," and "remains unchanged to this day."

Here are some quotes from those who designed such system in the late 19800s and early 1900s:

We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes. (The Senate Committee on Education, 1888)

Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. (John Dewey, 1897)

[schools should be factories]... "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry." (Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford, 1905)

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands... (Rockefeller Education Board—which funded the creation of numerous public schools, 1906).

The book is freely downloadable from here.

Happiness, again

2006-07-01T12:02:00.000+07:00

I'm not quite done with happiness. And, apparently, neither have 900 Harvard students who attend Tal Ben-Shahar's class twice a week to learn "how to get happy." The class, Psychology 1504, or Positive Psychology, seemed to have become the most popular course on campus.

The course focuses on the psychological aspects of a fulfilling and flourishing life. Topics include happiness, self-esteem, empathy, friendship, love, achievement, creativity, music, spirituality, and humor.

And don't forget to click that first link to get Six Tips for Happiness a la Ben-Shahar.

technorati tags: happiness, development

Of happiness and/or wealth

2006-07-01T09:16:00.000+07:00

Here's another reason to support my thesis that happiness and income-level/wealth does NOT necessarily go together.

Economist Alan Krueger and psychologist and Nobel laureate in economics Daniel Kahneman have found, using a newly developed analytical technique, that people with above-average incomes do not necessarily spend more time doing things they enjoy.

And what do they enjoy?

People, regardless of their income, are happier when they're socializing than when they're doing work around the house. They're happier when they're doing active leisure-type activities than when they're watching TV.

This may correlate to the condition that high income-earners face: they have to work longer hours than their lower-income counterparts.

During most of the 1900s, the hours of work declined for most American men. But around 1970, the share of employed men regularly working more than 50 hours per week began to increase...
This shift was especially pronounced among highly educated, high-wage, salaried, and older men. For college-educated men, the proportion working 50 hours or more climbed from 22.2 percent to 30.5 percent in these two decades.

Ouch, I'd say.

Guess that's why Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972 created the term Gross National Happiness. Here's a link to a set of papers related to GNH from the Center for Bhutan Studies. There's also a project that promotes Gross International Happiness.

Now, wouldn't you wanna be one of the happy ones? :)

technorati tags: happiness, development, poverty

Loyal, smart, or honest

2006-07-01T07:50:00.000+07:00

It seems that India is in more than one way similar to Indonesia. Take this post from India Uncut, for example:

I find from the Times of India that the chief minister of Bihar gets a basic salary of Rs 2000 per month -- less than that of a government peon -- though with perks it goes up to around Rs 25,000. You combine that relatively low salary with immense power and discretion -- and therefore opportunities to be corrupt -- and it's virtually a guarantee that the field of politics will attract either losers or thugs. And obviously the thugs will beat the losers.

Back in Indonesia, we have an anecdote that goes: "A government worker can have either two of these three qualities: loyal, smart, OR honest. One cannot have all three."

Of course, this does not apply to all.

What population?

2006-06-30T19:47:00.000+07:00

At the end of the "Future of Cities" session, someone asked why population matters (e.g. family planning) was NOT dealth with enough during the World Urban Forum. Obviously, she was concerned about population pressure.

David Satterthwaite, however, gave a really blunt answer. He said:

"Population is not the problem. The problem is Donald Trump. We can fit the whole world's population in an area as big as Senegal, at the density of Chelsea. And, Chelsea is a pretty nice place..."

More Ikhlas, please!

2006-06-15T16:59:00.000+07:00

The Muslims have a word that I like a lot: ikhlas, meaning to give something without wanting anything in return. A close English comparison is maybe sincere, but ikhlas also means pure. Someone told me before that being ikhlas is like going to the toilet to poop or pee. You don't ever think of what happens to it next. You give something away to someone who needs it, and you forget about it. You never expect it to return in your favor the next day.

In the context of disaster relief and reconstruction, it seems that Indonesia - well, Bantul people in Yogyakarta, at least (maybe learning from the Aceh experience) - are sick and tired of people giving "aid" when they really want to:

give loan
convert someone to another religion
win political support
promote themselves (too much), for whatever reason

In the Bantul People's Asembly last Tuesday, the Indonesian flag stood proud and at full-height, instead of the usual half-hight to symbolize mourn.

Emha Ainun Najib said, "If anyone wants to help Bantul, then help. You don't need to "brag" about yourself. As from now on, I'd only like to see the Red and White Flag standing in Bantul. Let there be no other flags, be it political parties' or any other organization that's trying to take advantage of people's misery." Suara Merdeka and Republika reported.

Conversation with a Taxi Driver

2006-06-15T16:22:00.000+07:00

We arrived in Vancouver this afternoon, and took the taxi to the University of British Columbia. Our driver was of Somalian-origin, who instantly said "Assalamu'alaikum" after he found out that we were from Indonesia.

I remember two things that he said, responding to our being here on United Nations business.

One is that UN Headquarters should move from New York to Vancouver (or anywhere but the US), so that the UN would not be biased to US interests, and that it would stop "changing diapers" for the US.

Another is that he's not interested in working for the UN. Especially if their actions keep tending to back (or at least legitimize) the US' "mistakes."